Cornell Tech works to make med. face shields
A Cornell Tech student shows off some of the
face shields produced at the MakerLAB on
Roosevelt Island.
BY ROBERT
POZARYCKI
The MakerLAB at
Cornell Tech’s
Roosevelt Island
campus is no longer just
a learning institution. It’s
now also a mask-making
factory.
As the coronavirus
pandemic grips New
York City, the students
and staff are now working
hard to meet the
dire needs of medical
professionals working
to save lives across the
fi ve boroughs.
The Cornell Tech
team, out of Roosevelt
Island and its sister campus
in upstate Ithaca,
have already churned
out hundreds of face
shields using their fl eet
of 3D printers and vinyl
cutters.
Niti Parikh, director
of the MakerLAB at
Roosevelt Island, told
amNewYork Metro that
the idea to produce face
shields happened shortly
after occupancy restrictions
in New York
State took effect in mid-
March. The restrictions
ended in-person classes
and relegated instruction
to online courses
for the time being.
“When this lockdown
happened, we began
working to identifying
PHOTOS COURTESY BERLINROSEN
a need around the city
and fi guring out how to
help,” Parikh said.
Using a team of four
to fi ve students at a
time, the MakerLab developed
a prototype that
met CDC safety regulations
and went to work
producing them. They
used the lab’s fl eet of 3D
printers and vinyl cutters
to get the job done;
some team members
even brought their own
3D printers from home
for the effort.
The face shields are
relatively cheap to produce,
Parikh noted;
about 60 masks can be
produced from plastic
materials that normally
cost about $45. The
only drawback is that
3D printers take quite a
bit of time in producing
face shield frames; four
frames can be produced
in about 2 hours, 15
minutes per machine.
Parikh added that the
lab is developing a prototype
for a disposable
face shield using lasercut
vinyl and elastic
bands. These shields can
be produced in as little
as fi ve minutes each.
Batches of 3D-printed
face shields have already
been donated to
Weill Cornell Medicine
and NewYork-Presbyterian
Hospital on March
27; another batch was
dispatched to Elmhurst
Hospital Center in
Queens last week.
This week, the MakerLAB
team is sending
70 face shields to health
care professionals at the
Upper East Side Rehabilitation
and Nursing
Center, where older
coronavirus patients are
being treated.
Parikh expressed
pride in the MakerLAB
students’ effort thus
far — and noted that
they’re willing to do
even more.
“I have never experienced
something like
this where every skill
and craft and brains has
come together to help,”
she said. “And our students
have reached out
again and again. This
was their spring break
last week … but
they’re choosing to stay
back in New York City
and they are just eager
to help.”
Working in consultation
with a community
member, the Maker-
LAB team is looking
to develop a “tactile”
device that can communicate
family messages
to coronavirus patients
in intensive care. These
patients, many of whom
are on ventilators fi ghting
for their lives, are
in isolation; their family
members cannot be with
them in person, even in
their fi nal moments.
The tactile would include
a sensor in which
a family member could
record a message that
a patient could hear
with a simple press or
squeeze of a button.
“We are seeing patients
dying alone, so
something like this
would defi nitely be welcome,”
Parikh added.
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