Covid-19 Face Shields

At the start of COVID-19, I noticed the trend in face shields, particularly the Prusa design. However, we didn’t have a 3D printer capable of making them, so we explored other avenues. At the time, my robotics team was based out of my garage, which housed a large-scale CNC router. With this new resource, I began designing a shield optimized for fabrication on a CNC router.

Although I had experience in design and fabrication, I had never worked on something that needed to be medical-grade, so I had to do some research. The most pressing issue with face shields and medical devices was minimizing areas that might not be effectively cleaned, which could allow bacteria to survive. With this in mind, I reduced the part count and avoided using elastic fabrics for the headband. Instead, I chose rubber bands and zip ties as comfortable replacements for elastic, and the design was ready for production.

With a solidified design, I needed to source materials. While making an early batch, a neighbor noticed us working and mentioned he had connections with some friends who were also working on shields. Through this connection, he sourced materials that had been donated by Coca-Cola. With excess material, our only limitation was production capacity. The bottleneck was bending the plastic headbands, which involved heating the cut parts in an oven and molding them onto a manifold. To increase our output, I designed new manifolds that could hold more headbands and distributed them to our neighbors. With this small army, our output significantly increased.

During this time, our shields were being distributed throughout the Bay Area by a family friend who worked as an emergency health worker. Through this distribution network, some of our face shields ended up being sent across the country. One incredibly rewarding aspect of this project was receiving photos and emails from health workers who had received our face shields.