Army Sgt. Aidan Hanson holds up a 3D-printed washing machine latch at Fort Bragg, N.C., on March 9, 2026. Hanson developed the latch to replace worn-out parts in barracks machines after learning the manufacturer no longer produced the part. (Prim Hibbard/U.S. Army)
It took an 82nd Airborne paratrooper armed with a paperclip-sized piece of plastic to fix what Big Army couldn’t.
Sgt. Aidan Hanson, a soldier with the Fort Bragg, N.C.-based division, said he had enough of the out-of-order signs attached to dozens of washing machines in the barracks where he lived.
“We were getting to a point where almost all of our washers within the (division artillery) barracks were unserviceable and couldn’t be used because the latch was broken,” Hanson said in an Army statement Thursday.
Hanson, a barracks manager, consulted with the local public works office and learned it was unable to procure the needed part because it was no longer in production. Rather than give up, Hanson paid a visit to the division’s “Innovation Lab,” where he looked for a solution.
Working alongside the division’s engineering team, Hanson used a 3D printer to develop multiple prototypes, with a focus on durability and affordability, the Army said. The final result was a 3D-printed piece roughly the size of a big paperclip that was “far superior in structure and can be produced in hours,” the Army said.
“Simple solutions like this help improve Soldier quality of life while driving smarter, more efficient ways of operating across the Corps,” according to the Army statement, which noted that Hanson had discovered around 200 washing machines in the Fort Bragg area with the same problem.
Problems in the barracks have been a longstanding quality-of-life issue for service members. The issues range from big to small, whether it is raw sewage overflows and mold or broken-down washing machines.
In January, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told a room full of soldiers at Fort Drum, N.Y., that the service was trying to overcome a long history of doing too little, too late to make barracks life better for junior soldiers.
“We’ve gone to bases all over the world [during the last year, and found] there are many, many, many things where we are failing you… We have got to get [solutions] for you much faster,” Driscoll said during the town hall event.
