Manhattan student makes needed
face shields for Bronx hospital
BY JASON COHEN
An Upper West Side student
is doing much more than learning
virtually. Sam O’Hara is
making face shields for front
line workers at hospitals, including
St. Barnabas.
O’Hara is the captain of his
high school robotics team and
once used 3D printing to build
a working 140-piece model jet
engine, but he never imagined
doing anything like this.
The 17-year-old got a 3D
printer for Christmas and
started off by making some
toys for his sister. But when
COVID-19 arrived, the youngster
knew he wanted to pitch
in.
“I just wanted to help the
hospitals,” he told the Bronx
Times.
Barnabas became a benefi
ciary because his parents
Jonathan and Mandy are longtime
friends of Dr. Janine Adjo,
chair of the St. Barnabas Department
of Pediatrics. Coincidentally,
his pediatrician
mother began her career at St.
Barnabas before the two doctors
ever met.
When he decided in March
to help the medical community,
O’Hara sought out Jake
Lee, a Columbia University
student and key fi gure in the
charity NYCMakesPPE. After
receiving printer fi les from
Lee for an appropriately vetted
face shield design, he began
in making homemade face
shields.
According to O’Hara, although
his father bought two
additional printers to help him
create face shields, the process
was not easy. At fi rst it took
him two hours to make one
shield and a total of four or fi ve
a day. But eventually he got a
system down.
“I could only print two at a
time and they took 90 minutes
each,” he explained. “This production
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rate wasn’t going to
cut it. The PPE I make needs to
be functional but at the same
time, I’d like to cover, literally,
as many healthcare workers as
possible.”
There was also the issue of
resetting printers after each
batch fi nishes. This meant
waking up every two hours
nightly, which, when O’Hara
started oversleeping for online
classes, didn’t bode well with
his parents or teachers.
“To solve this I explored
several solutions, ranging
from custom computer code
that knocks face shields off the
printer automatically and staying
awake in shifts.” The best
idea, he found, was much simpler:
stack the shields and print
20 at once. “I can now leave it
on while I’m sleeping,” he said.
With help from his father,
Jonathan, NYCMakesPPE and
upstate retailer G & S Glass
Inc., O’Hara has since recruited
others to do the same.
He has reached out to his robotic
teammates and through
a teacher at his school, fellow
3D afi cionados on social media,
to help the cause while following
safety, quality and labeling
guidelines.
In total, he has printed and
distributed nearly 1,200 face
shields to hospitals, ambulance
corps and visiting nurses, 180 of
which ended up at St. Barnabas
Hospital, with more to come.
O’Hara, who plans to attend
Purdue University in the fall
with plans to become an aerospace
engineer, said the cost of
his supplies is relatively small.
The plastic used to make 150
shields, for example, runs $20,
with the biggest investment
made in terms of his time.
“I’m disappointed big companies
aren’t doing this,” he
said. “It doesn’t make sense
that a high school student is doing
this.”
Sam O’Hara of the UWS makes face
shields for St. Barnabas using a 3D
printer. Photo courtesy of Sam O’Hara
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