Last year I was asked to help resolve a problem in my community swim club. The insurance company was requiring automatic closures for all gates.
The Problem:
All available gate closures were designed for round posts and the pool had square posts. Oh, and we had 3 days to correct the problem.
At this point I knew Rapid Prototyping would be the only solution in the time period we had. So I designed a closure mount for a square post. Then I made a part using Somos Next resin on one of our SLA machines. Now hopefully the part would be strong enough to pass the insurance inspection.
Well the inspector came and we passed the inspection and everyone forgot about the gate latch and enjoyed the pool. Two seasons and hundreds of gate closures later I remembered about this part and had to see if it still was being used. As you can see from the picture below the part is still intact and functioning.
I don't know if it is the strongest SLA Resin available but in two seasons at the pool it is a good example of an "open and shut" case.