In a rather heart-warming story, an injured penguin has been helped to walk again with a custom 3D printed boot.

Children from Mystic Middle School in Connecticut teamed up with a local aquarium and 3D printing firm to make it happen, and in the rather unpleasant world of today’s news, we hope this provides some happiness.

The penguin, named Yellow Purple or ‘Purps’ for short, managed to tear a tendon in her left leg after a fight with a fellow bird at Mystic Aquarium in 2011. Since then, she has been unable to walk properly.

To help her walk fully again, the school children – as part of a project run by 3D systems, with ACT Group – created a hand-moulded cast of Purps’ foot. After discovering this was too heavy for the penguin, they used 3D System’s ProJet MJP 5500x to create a cast perfectly formed to support her leg.

And now, she’s back to her speedy self – swimming, climbing over rocks and fashioning her new cast to the class.

"This project not only helped a member of an endangered species, but it gave our students a hands-on understanding of the 3D-printing process" Sue Prince from Mystic Middle School commented.