The Coronavirus has created a serious health crisis, and I intended on applying my engineering skills, specifically with regards to 3D printing, to help aid hospitals, doctors, and nurses. I designed a contactless latch that is compatible with most doors, made a 3D printed mask that filters air, as well as fabricated and donated thousands of parts for face shields. I’ve dubbed this project Covid3D.
Corona-latch
In my time quarantining in my room, I started reading about the Coronavirus and how it spreads. I learnt how crucial it is that people stop coming into physical contact with each other since that would escalate the spread rapidly and exponentially. Thinking about it, I realized how many hands touch a doorknob since it requires contact to be utilized and many people likely use the same door. An idea popped into my head about manipulating doors with one’s feet as opposed to hands. This is far better since 1) people often wear shoes and 2) your feet never touch your face thus lowering the risk of the virus spreading or being caught. I opened Fusion360 and began CAD-ing an attachment to the bottom of the door, which I called the CoronaLatch, that had a lever arm connected with a string to the doorknob. When someone steps on the lever arm, the knob is rotated and the door can be opened and manipulated with the attachment. I ensured there was a ledge to rest your foot so you could swing and move the door as desired, just like you would do with your hand.
3D Model of CoronaLatch
In action!
After fabricating the parts and putting it together, it worked [video of it working]! I posted the parts for the CoronaLatch on Thingiverse so that anyone can build one. The project has received thousands of views and downloads on Thingiverse. I have also received a message from a doctor in Dubai, who will be making more to be placed in the hospital he works in. I am now working with him to make some modification so the CoronaLatch can be implemented in hospitals in his area easily and rapidly. I also am contacting other nurses and doctors to see if they are interested in implementing the CoronaLatch. The project clearly scaled, even internationally, which I considered a great success since it was able to help a lot of people protect themselves and others around them.
Formed Mask Build
Moving forward, I decided to make a 3D printed mask that provided some filtration of air. I read about the severe shortage and how doctors and nurses have been using stray cloth to cover their faces. Initially, I worked on designing a mask that could be 3D printed, however while doing some research I came across the Copper3D mask. It was designed in conjunction with doctors and was in the midst of widespread approval. I decided that building a modified version of their mask would be far better in the long run than starting from scratch with my own. The issue found with this version of the mask was air flow issues, so I added a second vent and filter. The process was quite smooth after that. I began with printing the mask and then heating it with a heat gun to soften the plastic (can also be done with warm water) to mold it around my face, a really cool feature than ensured a tight seal. After it solidified seconds later, it was ready for the filters. The beauty of the design was the filters could be swapped easily, making the mask easy to sanitize and reusable. I screwed the filter assembly on and the mask was complete. I was ready to donate some to a nurse that had requested masks at a local hospital. [I made a video to document the build in more detail]
Lets scale it up...
After working on those projects, I wanted to start mass producing a mask and distributing them to hospitals everywhere. I found a maker space called Maker Nexus in my area from previous connections from when I worked at TechShop, a maker space in SF. They had started a program to deliver thousands of masks across the nation. I partnered with them and began printing face shield parts, which was preferred over masks at hospitals. I created my own stacked version of the headband part to make prints more efficient since I could now print 10 stacked as opposed to resetting the printer after every print. I was able to make around 15 headbands a day on my single Ender 3 Pro. My stacked version caught attention on the Maker Nexus Slack and Prusa Face Shield slack for the custom supports I used that broke away very easily, drastically reducing the clean up time for parts. I got promoted by Maker Nexus on the slack to work more closely with those running the program and giving engineering insights to improve the designs.
I began to realize I was maxed out on production with my 3D printer so I contacted the principal and robotics mentors at my school. I am the Systems Engineer of my high school robotics team TKO 1351 so I knew we had a set of 4 Lulzbot printers. After an email exchange, they were more than willing to lend me the fleet of printers and support the project [Thanks so much @ Mitty!]. The robotics mentor kindly arranged a safe drop-off and I got them hooked up to my personal 3D print cloud server that I run in my house. With this new set of printers I could print over 50 headbands a day or 350 of the bottom reinforcement part at peak production. I cranked up my production and switched to PETG plastic, superior because it is easier to sanitize. I began deliveries and dropped off 1,000+ parts.
