ATLAS makers print face shield parts to help protect medical personnel from the novel coronavirus
Joining the global grassroots response to shortfalls in personal protective equipment, members of the ATLAS community are 3D printing parts for face shields to help protect local medical personnel against the highly contagious novel coronavirus.
From basements, officesand closets the whirring sounds of 3D printers is heard day and night in the homes of at least six members of the ATLAS community:Pete Pascente, master’s student; Wayne Seltzer, technologist-in-residence;Zack Weaver, instructor and creative technologist forBoulder Library makerspace (BLDG 61); Sheiva Rezvani, instructor;Camilla Friedman-Gerlicz,instructor; andAileen Pierce,senior instructor.
Together, they are part of the worldwide maker community that is sharing designs and makingpersonal protective equipment to compensate for the global shortagethat has left medical workers unable to adequately protect themselves and their patients against the coronavirus.
These ATLAS community members are joined by members of several other campus groups who are also 3D printing face-shield parts,including the Idea Forge,theIntegrated Teaching & Learning Program, the Program in Environmental Design, 鶹ѰScience Discovery, the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Department of Physics, the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physicsand the BEEM Lab in Mechanical Engineering, said Rebecca Komarek, assistant director of Idea Forge and acoordinatorforcampus face shield production withthe statewideMake4Covidinitiative. As of April 14, Make4Covid reported it had delivered nearly 11,750pieces of equipment, including more than 1,400 face shields madeby 鶹ѰBoulder groups.
Seltzer and Pascente originally collaboratedwith the NoCo Face Shield Project, a volunteer organization building protective face shields for Northern Colorado healthcare facilities, delivering their first batch of parts on March 28 to the Fort Collins Creator Hub. More recently, NoCo hasjoined forces with Make4Covid, which means a lot less driving. In an attempt to speed up print times, Pascente and Seltzer are beginning to experiment with larger nozzles for their 3D printers.
Between Pascente, Seltzer and Weaver, who have been at this longer than the others,they have manufactured parts for roughly 400 shields. Weaver, who isfocusing on makingcompletedface shields,cutting his own visors by hand from thin sheets of transparent plastic, has finished about 100,including a dozen delivered to Wardenburg Health Center on the 鶹ѰBoulder campus. Seltzer and Pascente are printing headbands and curved plastic reinforcements that attach to the top and bottom of transparent visors.“The focus is to print a lot of parts and get them to people who are assembling and distributing them,” said Seltzer.
The minimal design many of the makers are using originated with physicians who collaborated with the Czech Republic Ministry of Health and 3D printer manufacturer Prusa.
“As one of many people making parts at home 24/7, I'm glad to be contributingto thisproject,” Seltzer said.
Other ATLAS coronavirus-related projects:
, by CTD studentRuhan Yang
