Under an April 8 order from the Santa Clara County Public Health Department, volunteers at De Anza College in Cupertino and Maker Nexus in Sunnyvale will be required to disclose the stash of face shields they’re making for distribution to area hospitals.
The order requires all individuals and entities to disclose any large inventories of personal protective equipment and ventilators, including caches of more than 100 face shields. Maker Nexus last month undertook an initiative with the Valley Medical Center Foundation to produce 3,000 face shields a week. Instructors and classified employees in De Anza’s Design and Manufacturing Technologies (DMT) Department are making the plastic headbands that hold the face shields.
At De Anza, DMT department chair Mike Appio and three other staffers are using equipment in the department’s Additive Manufacturing Lab—including industrial 3D-printing machines and desktop 3D printers—to produce 100 headbands a week toward the effort, according to department.
The De Anza group is among 400 volunteers involved in making the face shields, including Saratoga High School students who are members of the school’s Mechanical Science and Engineering Team. Appio says his department’s lab equipment gives his staff a leg up on production.
“Our equipment is more commercial than people have at home,” he adds. “We can fulfill more than many people who are sending them in, and we can help in other ways.”
One of those ways is to work on a method for making the masks that employs plastic injection molding, which Appio says is faster than 3D printing.
Appio says some of his students who are members of Maker Nexus told him about the nonprofit’s efforts before De Anza cancelled classes March 16 due to coronavirus concerns. While he acknowledges that the project would be a good learning experience, Appio is hesitant to bring students into the lab while social distancing is in effect.
“Right now, we can keep up with demand and keep safe,” he says.
Appio says he and other members of the DMT department—including instructors Corey Dunsky and Brandon Boulden and lab coordinator Max Gilleland—are observing health and safety protocols while operating machines in the lab. They’re practicing social distancing, wearing appropriate protective equipment and regularly sterilizing all equipment and surfaces during the project.
The department chair says he hopes momentum for projects like the face shield initiative continues to build as the pandemic runs its course. Appio would also like to see Maker Nexus get its due in the form of donations for the project, as face shields cost $5 each to make.
“There are all these Makers creating great things,” he says. “Hopefully, we can keep donations coming in.”
For more information or to make a donation, visit makernexus.com/covid1.