Swimming has been evident to enhance teenagers’ health and enjoyment; meanwhile, swimming class plays an important role in physical education. 3d printing technology in customized equipment, accurate rehabilitation, and other sports fields is gradually realizing a wide range of applications. Thus, this project focuses on the problem of water entering the ear canal during swimming. By producing personalized and customized swimming earplugs, we further verify their psychological and physical impacts on swimmers, as well as their effects on the safety of swimming classes. Method: Firstly, we explored the material properties of antibacterial earplugs and the 3D-printing parameters. The ear canal models of subjects are obtained via 3D scanning technology, and personalized earplugs are fabricated through 3D printing suspension technology. Secondly, thirty young teenagers (15 females, 15 males) were recruited from a swimming class in a Chinese university and arranged for them to complete 6 swimming lessons while wearing the earplugs. The participants' experiences with the earplugs, physiological and physical impacts, changes in swimming performance, swimming willingness, and the effectiveness of safety education were measured by a battery of validated questionnaires. We have realized the personalized customization of swimming earplugs with PDMS and nanosilver (Ag) based on 3D printing technology, which exhibit excellent physical and chemical properties, and applied for a national patent. Significant differences were identified before and after training with earplugs, Cronbach's α=0.8, p < 0.05. The Likert scale showed that users achieved a mean score of 85±6.8 post-test, a significant improvement compared to the pretest of 76±8.3. In addition to this, other measures show a positive impact on swimming safety. Conclusion: Personalized earplugs are not easy to fall off during the wearing process, isolate external water into the ear completely, block external sound, and improve the safety of swimming. Swimming beginners wear earplugs in the ear canal, reducing the water pressure caused by the posture change on the ear canal sting, reducing psychological pressure, and enjoying the process of learning to swim. Future research may optimize the performance of the product, apply it in more scenarios, and test this conclusion.
Xu et al. (Thu,) studied this question.