During the global pandemic of Covid-19 there has been a lack of sanitary protection material. The maker environment has responded quickly with different proposals: one of the most popular was protective face shield covering the eyes and a large part of the face.
The sanitarians used the surgical masks not to infect and the protective face shields not to be infected. The use of shields has been temporary, to respond to a momentary need while the professional masks FFP2 and FFP3 arrived.
I have been able to participate and document for a few days the production and distribution process of a group of volunteers and companies in Olot (Girona, Spain) called #voluntaris3Dgarrotxa.
In this period it has been seen that the recommendations and sanitary protections are being modified as more scientific data on the virus become known.
Innova Didàctic (http://shop.innovadidactic.com/) is an educational robotics company that runs workshops for children and schools, sells electronic educational material and collaborates with the Robolot team (http://www.robolot.org/).
During this emergency situation, it is organizing the assembly of protective face shields against Covid-19 in the Olot area (Garrotxa). Innova Didàctic is in contact with more than 50 makers from La Garrotxa and 20 local companies that have 3D printers and supply of plastic screens.
In a week they have produced more than 3.600 protective face shields that have been distributed to different hospitals in Girona area, the workers of the Ajuntament d’Olot, homes for the elderly and other public services.
Some industrial companies like Noel, 3D Tecnics, GIPSA and EMOL had built a mold and they are injecting the frames of protective face shields. On Tuesday 30th March we received 600 frames at Innova Didàctic and the volunteers mounted the protective face shields in two hours. Now the production is bigger, around 3.000 frames/day plus the ones made by the local makers.
You can find more information about the initiative in this article: https://www.naciodigital.cat/noticia/198958/robotica/garrotxa/es/bolca/fabricar/pantalles/protectores/amb/impressores/3d
I will present you my experience with making protective face shields with the community #voluntaris3DGarrotxa.
There are more than 50 makers that are printing daily, then we have more than 20 companies that are printing and injecting protective face shields with a mould and they produce more than 3.400 face shields/day.
Innova Didactic collects the makers production and some production of the local industries, and then the volunteers assemble all the frames with the plastic sheet. At the same time, they are printing some oxygen masks developed together with the team #robotsenys.
They also receive calls from the sanitary and social sector and coordinates the deliveries with them. They have been supplying protective face shields to hospitals in Olot, Girona and Barcelona.
I’ve been three days volunteering for 10hours and the feelings they have transmitted to me are.
· Admiration: for the makers, there’s people that wake up at night two times to print more face shields.
· Prevision: for the local industries because in two weeks they have developed an injection mold and they are mass producing protective face shields.
· Adrenaline: when the sanitary people came at night to take the protective face shields, they were very grateful and they gave us adrenaline with their words. When I arrived at night around 10pm I couldn’t sleep of the emotion.
· Passion: for me Innova Didàctic is an example of constant energy and love to their job. They’re working more than 12hours/day and are the nucleus of this volunteering system.
Here you can see the design iterations of the protective face shields. They started with the Coronavirus Maker model but it takes a lot of time to print the cap visor, so they decided to redesign and simplify the frame of the face shield.
And they did the first version with elastic band. Then they decided to try to laser cut metacrylate but it was to fragile and rigid.
So they decided to redesign the protective face shield with elastic band and simplify it more. Finally from this design the local industries have made the injection model.
Innova Didactic is also working with another community of volunteers in Montseny called Robotseny and they are also working with hospitals.
This is the production space in Innova Didactic with some volunteers.
Below some tweets related with the production of #voluntaris3Dgarrotxa.
This picture was taken in the moment where sanitary people came to Innova Didactic to collect the protective face shields at night.
Here some tweets related with the use of the protective face shields produced by the volunteers. As you can see there are different services using it: hospitals, local food shops, police, ambulances, residences…
Since the 3rd of April they have developed a formulary to facilitate the online demand of masks.
When Innova Didactic receives the frames of the face shield from the makers they have a cleaning protocol: they clean it outside with water and bleach, they enter in a plastic bag, they take out the water, they perforate the plastic sheet, they assemble the frame with the plastic sheet, and they put it into cardboard boxes.
There’s also a protocol made by Salut Department to clean the protective face shields during the use.
Finally I’ve made a comparison between the protective face shields. The Coronavirus makers has a good relation: quality - price and is easy to distribute but has an uncomfortable restraint system.
The 3D print Makers Garrotxa has the same pros as the coronavirus makers but in the contras has a fragile structure.
The injected is a redesign of the Makers Garrotxa. Is comfortable, mass produced but in contras you need a big inversion of the mold and the injection machine.
The helmet is comfortable and made with resistant materials, but in the contras is more expensive and there aren’t enough per person.
