Teachers Busy Constructing Protective Face Shields for First Responders during the Current Pandemic
A team of teachers have been busy trying to make a difference and save lives by printing protective face shields in their spare time. The team made up of Plymouth High School construction and manufacturing teacher Michael Wraight, PHS science teacher Josh Fender, PCSC orchestra teacher Jodi Kallenberg and her husband Daniel Kallenberg, a science teacher from Adams High School, have been printing protective face shields and donating the product to medics and other professionals working on the front lines during the pandemic.
Wraight, in his first year at Plymouth High School, said the shields are in general made from easily accessible and inexpensive material. He said the goal was to help fill the gap of personal protection equipment (PPE) for local healthcare workers created by COVID-19. The group started with one 3D printer and printed 50 face shields in March that were donated to the Marshall County Health Department. By April, the group had five printers and were able to print another 75. The second round of face shields were dropped off yesterday to St. Joseph Health System in Plymouth for their health care workers who are working on the front lines.
“The Plymouth Public Library, Ancilla College and ITAMCO all heard about our efforts and loaned their 3D printers to us to use to help speed up our production efforts. We started with three of our personal printers making a design from the internet. Then the Plymouth Public Library loaned us their printer, Ancilla loaned us two of theirs, and ITAMCO loaned two of theirs as well. At one point, I had five printers on my dining room table. We’ve had the printers in our homes so we could keep them running 12 hours a day,” said Wraight.
“Josh and Daniel are both printing frames. Jodi has been helping with gathering donations of materials. I am printing frames, cutting the clear plastic and assembling the product. I also handle the coordination. The frames are printed in plastic. The clear plastic is an overhead transparency sheet - something that schools have a lot of but no longer use since technology has changed.” Wraight said.
When asked on average to give us an idea, how long does it take to print one face shield? Wraight said it truly varies depending on which 3D printer you are using. "Mr. Fender can do a frame in 30 minutes. It takes me an hour and 16 minutes. The laser can cut a sheet of overhead transparency in 11 seconds. It takes another 20 seconds to put it all together and glue the shield to the frame.”
Plymouth Community School Corporation donated some of the plastic for the printers as well as overhead transparency sheets. Wraight said, “The other donation is the use of the Plymouth High School laser cutter in the Project Lead The Way room. We use this machine to cut the holes in the clear plastic to fit the frame. Ancilla College donated several pounds of plastic for the printers. Pioneer Junior-Senior High School in Royal Center, Indiana donated enough transparencies for us to make 1500 shields should the need arise.”
Wraight said he’s not the type of person who can just sit around and do nothing during COVID-19. “I know people working in health care, I have students who have family working in health care - I want to be able to ensure they are protected from exposure to this virus.
I knew that I could do something, the question was ‘what’? I had been looking online and reading some articles of what other “Makers” (people who create, use 3D printers, etc. to solve problems) had been doing. There are a lot of very talented people out there working on the problem. I began tossing around ideas with Daniel, a personal friend of mine, and we settled on creating a face shield that would be easy for us to make and the supplies would be readily available. We have had a lot of great support from both PHS principal Jim Condon and PCSC superintendent Andy Hartley - if it weren’t for their support and blessings, we wouldn’t have been able to pull this off!”
Currently, all 3D printers have been returned to the companies and organizations that allowed the group of teachers to use the machines for this project besides the one on loan from the Plymouth Public Library. Wraight said they are holding on to one of the 3D printers just in case the need arises to print more face shields for additional first responders working the front lines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
