Twelve-year-old Jack O’Grady has made a batch of nose clips, which prevent facemasks steaming up glasses, on his 3D printer and donated them to the police.

The Year 8 Ballakermeen student from Douglas received the 3D printer last Christmas after having ’asked for one for years’.

He first started printing figures of characters from computer games and TV shows like Rick and Morty.

During the pandemic, he experimented with making the nose clips for his parents, who wear glasses.

The printer originally came from family friends Roxanne Hannay and Aaron Kennaugh, who run the arts and design Facebook page ’Hector & Spud’s’ from their house in Onchan.

They showed Jack how to use the printer, having themselves been producing hundreds of nose clips to donate to health workers.

Of the clips the couple made for the public, they asked for donations to local charity Housing Matters, having so far raised more than £1,200 - this amount was then matched by Swagelok, the engineering company Aaron works for.

Jack’s mum Vicky said that her friend in the police had seen what Hector & Spud’s were doing with the clips, and asked if Jack would be able to make some for the force on his printer at home - so far he has produced 30 units for them.

Asked how he first became interested in 3D printing, Vicky said Jack is ’such a tinkerer’ and always interested in taking things apart to find out how they work - last summer, he completely disassembled his bike by following YouTube video instructions.

She said that he first tried Hector & Spud’s 3D printer, to ensure he understood the procedure for operating one because ’it’s not just a case of pressing a button and off you go’.

Jack told us with the machine ’the world’s your limit, because when you’ve got one you can print anything off’.

He aspires to be a design engineer, adding: ’I want to start my own business eventually, with my own original ideas [for printable products]’.

A police spokesperson commented: ’This is a great example of what we can do as an island. When it’s all over PC Lou and PC Fitz from the Eastern Team [who picked the clips up from the family’s doorstep] will see what we can do to say thanks, but for now he got some of our favourite police treats (Haribo).’