People ask us about design speed all the time. Turnaround times, iteration cycles, how fast a case moves from prescription to delivery. Last summer, we decided to answer the question in the most literal way we could think of.
It started the way most good ideas do: someone with too much free time, a spare FPV quad frame, and a printer full of Lucitone Digital Print. We had a GoPro that needed a canopy. We had access to every tool you'd normally use to design a prosthetic. The rest followed naturally.
The Build
The canopy is a two-part design, faithful to how a full denture is actually constructed. The base plate is printed in Lucitone Digital Print, the same biocompatible resin we use for denture bases. The teeth are a separate print in 3D Premium Tooth, bonded to the base after post-cure. Both resins are from Dentsply Sirona, supplied by the fine people at Henry Schein. We did notice the original fang geometry wasn't quite anatomically correct, so we revised it. Occupational habit.
The fit over the GoPro frame was tight enough that it didn't need secondary fastening. As with any design from CadCan, getting the retention just right is what we aim for. The camera lens sits centered in the palate, looking forward through the open mouth. Aerodynamics were not a design consideration. Art direction was.
The Flight
We put it on a standard 5" freestyle build and flew it. The canopy held. It turns out biocompatible denture resin is reasonably indifferent to wind loading at FPV speeds, which is probably not a use case Dentsply Sirona had in mind.
We posted a photo to r/fpv. It got hundreds of upvotes and the inspiration to design a lower arch. The top comment was "This is the most awful and best thing I have seen on a kwad." Someone called it Warhammer 40K. Someone else said they could smell the monomer through the screen, which tracks.
Another commenter said, and we quote: "Morally it's wrong. Legally it is questionable. Personally I love it." We felt that covered the bases.
So, How Fast?
Fast enough. We hit 140 km/h on a standard 5" freestyle build, and we were holding back. What we can tell you is that Lucitone Digital Print survives the experience, the GoPro footage is exactly as unhinged as you'd expect from a drone wearing teeth, and the design cycle from concept to first flight was one afternoon.
That is what this whole thing is actually about. A lot of mainline dental design software sells itself on being simple, on abstracting away the craft so anyone can use them. You can take a person off the street and have them design a crown. We are not that. We work in Blender with a set of custom addons, which means the ceiling is as high as the person sitting at the keyboard. The people we work with grew up in this industry. They have opinions. They want designs that carry the same judgment a skilled technician used to put into the work by hand. What the drone proves is not that we have a fast pipeline. It is that when someone who knows what they are doing picks up the tools, the only limit is imagination. My grandfather built half the furniture in my home. I grew up in his garage. Now I have my own. That is the company we are trying to be.
The video has been sitting on our server since last August. You can watch it here. It is exactly what you think it is.
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