Our bridge to transplant heart works by two screws (in black) being driven either two or one motor (stand-ins marked with tape) in two separate chambers.
These motors will be hooked up to battery pack and will be either charged by a physical port, or by wireless technology. The screws will turn and will work similar to a drill, and will push the blood through the heart and vein systems with great efficiency.
The heart only requires four non-printable parts, two bolts and two nuts. these are used to put the heart together. Even these parts could be modeled and 3D printed if the need did arise.
This device can also be parried with a pacemaker to ensure the body is being supplied an adequate blood and that the motors aren't being over worked.

Researching is a curtail part of learning about the thing you are trying to create/replace. This research included reading articles, studying diagrams, and asking professionals.
- An article, cited in the rules of the competition named In Search of the Impossible Machine, the Artificial Heart, introduces the concept of replacing the complicated organ that is the heart. Also in this article, it talks about a special heart pump, a LVAD (Left ventricular assist device). which I took great inspiration from for this design.
- To design a replacement heart, you first have to look at the heart itself. After looking around for a little, we found a diagram that was consistent. This diagram would be helpful for the later modeling process.

After discussing and scheming ideas in our heads, we sat down and began to come up with ideas on how out heart would be printed, looks, function, and how long it might last.
- The first design idea was a centrifugal pump, that is very common and in maybe devices around you. It also seemed popular with the 3D printing community, with multiple different designs of pumps being shared on numerous websites. This option seemed great, until you looked into how centrifugal pumps work. Their main drawback was that they could only run for about 15-20 minutes before the motors started overheating. this is what took this option off the table
- The second option was to make some sort of diaphragm or something similar that worked just like the heart. We didn't look into this idea that much because a device of this sorts would be overly complex and would take more that a rapid prototyping schedule to make.
- The third option, and the one we ended up going with, was a mixture of a centrifugal pump and a rotary pump. Combining these two types would best enhance their ability's, while suppressing their drawbacks. The final design we came up with was two screws, that would move the blood throughout the heart and vein systems. This type of pump may also be known as a screw pump.
After coming up with the design, we continued to make drawings and discussed further the inner working mechanics of it.

Here at GCHS Robotics, we use the modeling software Autodesk Fusion 360. All we did was simply turn out drawings into 3D objects, only making minor changes when necessary or when a problem was run into.
As shown in the photos, room was left in the heart for the placement of motors to drive the screws that pump the blood. Also seen in the photos is a very handy cutaway view, that lets us see the inside and inner working parts of the model

All three body pieces, Side 1, Side 2, and Middle will all need to be printed separately
You need to print two of the corkscrews. It is also recommended that you print them separately as to not make them fail

Happy Printing!

Model origin

The author marked this model as their own original creation.

Garden City Highschool 3D Printed Bridge to Transplant Heart BESTRobotics2023