This is the amazing story of a Bald Eagle named Beauty. Beauty’s story starts tragically. Somebody literally shot her in the face and left her for dead. That’s so ridiculously terrible it sounds like it would be a joke answer to the question of “What’s the most unpatriotic thing that one person can do?” Beauty’s bullet wounds left her without the upper half of her beak which meant she couldn’t eat, drink or care for herself. Luckily she was brought into the care of Birds of Prey Northwest who were able to keep her alive but they weren’t able to find a way to repair her beak. That’s where Nate Calvin of the Kinetic Engineering Group stepped in to volunteer his services. He scanned what was left of Beauty’s beak and then was able to model a replacement for her. The new beak was created using a rapid prototyping 3D printer and then attached with dental epoxy applied by Nate’s personal dentist giving Beauty back the life that was taken from her.

Beauty’s New Beak via Birds of Prey Northwest

There are a lot of religions and philosophies that believe that there is balance in all things. It’s a tragedy that a terrible human being used technology that mankind has built to harm this beautiful animal. Thankfully somebody was able to turn that tragedy into triumph using some of the same knowledge and innovation. I’d like to think that any problems that man creates for himself are also within our ability to fix and solve. That’s why I studied engineering and it’s also the core motivation for this entire Flux Auto project. Global warming and energy production will be a generation defining challenge in the not-as-distant-as-you-may-think future. Lets do everything we can to make sure we’re ready to take it on.