S&T students provide face shields to health care workers
Photo Tom Wagner/Missouri S&T, A first batch of 250 face shields, 3D printed by S&T groups, including the Student Design and Experiential Learning Center, in photo, Makerspace, and ITRSS. The face shields are delivered to Phelps Health, and received by Dr. Brian Kriete, head of surgery at the hospital. Most of the face shields go into a hospital meeting room converted into storage space for additional PPE being collected. Ten of the face shields were immediately taken to the outdoor triage facility at Phelps Hospital where Corvid-19 testing can be done, and the face shields are handed out to the doctors and nurses on the testing line to replace their current ones.
University of Missouri and Technology set up a 3D printer-farm in the Student Design and Experiential Learning Center, (SDELC), to 3D print reusable N95 masks and face shields for local hospitals. The 3D printer-farm is now working with more than 20 printers on site, provided by SDELC teams and S&T students, and will be staffed and run by students 24/7 with a goal to print and assemble face masks and face shields for use during the Covid-19, new corona virus, pandemic. The project has begun as an effort to work with Phelps Health, a local health care group to prepare for and alleviate shortages of personal protective equipment, (PPE), for health care workers. Dr. Casey Burton, a S&T graduate, Dr. Brian Kriete, head of Surgery at Phelps Health, Dr. Dennis Goodman, director of health Services at S&T, give feedback and insights to the student designers from SDEL, Makerspace, ITRSS from S&T. Professors and lab teams from the University are also collaborating on the project including Dr. Yang Wang’s team working on lab testing filter materials for the masks. Other S&T students are printing the same mask designs at their homes from the 3D files sent to them from SDELC and Makerspace, contributing to this S&T project. The masks are taking three to four hours each to print. In less than 6 hours from the first d