Charlotte, an injured turtle, wears his custom-made, 3D-printed harness that helps him swim straight. FormlabsA green sea turtle named Charlotte is getting a second chance at swimming normally thanks to a 3D-printed harness meant to address his bubble butt syndrome. After the turtle spent years at Connecticuts Mystic Aquarium with no permanent solution to his overly buoyant backside, a group of engineers created a device to help him move more easily.Bubble butt syndrome, also known as positive buoyancy syndrome, happens when air is trapped in the back of a turtles shell after an injury. This causes turtles to float in an awkward position with their rear ends elevatedmaking swimming considerably difficult and preventing the animal from diving far beneath the surface. Bubble butt syndrome usually happens after a boat strike, which can cause deformities in the shell and trap pockets of air within it. Boat strikes affect hundreds to thousands of sea turtles in the United States yearly.That was the fate of Charlotte, a male green sea turtle who was named before the aquarium team confirmed his gender. He arrived at the Mystic Aquarium in 2008 from Jeckyll Island, Georgia, after a boat impact left him with spinal injuries that led to bubble butt syndrome and paralyzed his back flippers.For turtles in general, their spine runs directly underneath the shell, Claire Bolster, Charlottes handler at the Mystic Aquarium, tells Laura Baisas of Popular Science. So, when turtles are hit by boats, most often the injuries go to their spines, because it is directly connected. With the spine getting hit, the nerves to the gastrointestinal system also are impacted. They can also lose function of the rear flippers since those nerves are also damaged.While at the aquarium, Charlotte became a fan favorite, despite his peculiar way of swimming head-down, according to the Mystic Aquarium. But his handlers wanted to find a way for him to move more comfortably.Saving Charlotte: How 3D Printing Helps Sea Turtles with Bubble Butt SyndromeWatch on To treat the floating ailment, rehab specialists in general will glue weights to a turtles shell with a fiberglass-based epoxy. But the weights eventually come off, making that strategy an impermanent solution for the affliction.Adding weights didnt work well enough in Charlottes caseand when the team outfitted him with a weighted fabric sling, he tore it off against a wall, reports Dan Haar for CT Insider. The glue also caused Charlotte some irritation.The vet staff was joking around calling him Charlotte Houdini because of all of the devices theyve tried over the years, said Nick Gondek, director of additive manufacturing at the 3D printing company Adia, to Popular Science.So, Jen Flower, chief clinical veterinarian at the Mystic Aquarium, and the aquariums staff turned to 3D printing for a solution. Flower took inspiration from a 3D-printed weighted belt recently created by high schooler Gabriela Queiroz Miranda as a science project to help turtles with bubble butt.The problem we have been trying to solve is essentially putting weights on the back of Charlotte, which sounds very simple, but it ended up being a very challenging process. The only way to really get something to stick to Charlotte was to build a custom device, Gondek says in a statement from Formlabs, which provided materials for attaching weights to the 3D-printed device. Weights stuck directly to Charlotte's shell bothered him and didn't work very well. FormlabsCharlottes custom harness was created by a collaboration between Adia, Formlabs and New Balance Athletics. Adia had previously outfitted a penguin named Purps at the Mystic Aquarium with a boot to treat a foot injury.To ensure that Charlottes harness was comfortable enough and would not cause irritation, the team tested multiple prototypes of the belt and settled on one that was light, adjustable, flexible and hugged the edges of his shell. After five years of trial and error, they got the design just right.When Charlotte was fitted with his new device, the team was at first nervous because of how he had been impatient with previous things attached to his shell. But once in the water, Charlotte seemed comfortable and swam normally. As Charlotte settles into his harness and works his back flippers, the team will gradually add more weights to counteract his bubble butt syndrome.The animal has had such a long time swimming in an abnormal way that we dont want to just correct everything necessarily all at once,Molly Martony, a senior veterinarian at Mystic Aquarium, tells Tina Detelj of WTNH.While Charlotte wont be released into the wild, the project was meant to improve his life in the aquarium. Formlabs is now working on scaling the solution to bubble butttheyre looking for turtles suffering from bubble butt around the world and are on the hunt for collaborators to help outfit the injured reptiles with spiffy, weighted harnesses.Our hope is that an aquarium could upload a scan of a turtle, have access to an online design tool and export a file, which would allow them to build a harness, Gondek tells CT Insider. Once this process is streamlined, animal caretakers could more easily better the quality of life of their turtle.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: 3D Printing, Animals, Boats, Engineering, Health, Innovations, Reptiles, Turtles