overall: 9 in x 8 3/4 in x 7 1/2 in; 22.86 cm x 22.225 cm x 19.05 cm
Object Name:
face shield
Place made:
United States: New York, Stony Brook
Date made:
2020
Description:
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the COVID-19 outbreak had become a pandemic. On April 3, 2020, the CDC recommended that Americans wear face coverings when they were in public spaces and unable to maintain a social distance of 6 feet or more. In the initial aftermath of this declaration, N95 masks were extremely difficult to find and some Americans began to make their own cloth masks and face shields.
Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did not recommend using face shields without a cloth mask, face shields were seen as providing additional benefits. They not only protected the nose and mouth but also the eyes which were believed to provide a gateway for SARS-CoV-2. Face shields also had the additional benefit of preventing individuals from repeatedly touching their faces. Finally, these shields prolonged the life span of N95 masks, allowing them to be reused at a time when they were in short supply.
In late March, faculty and students working at iCreate!, a maker lab at Strong Brook University(State University of New York/SUNY), were asked to make plastic face shields for hospital staff at Stony Brook University Hospital. Although iCreate! faculty and students received this request on a late Friday night, they almost immediately initiated consultation with hospital staff and developed a prototype. Working closely with the medical practitioners who would use the shields, students refined the design.
Their design used materials which were, in the very early days of the pandemic, easy to obtain: elastic bands from JoAnn Fabric and Craft, foam insulation used for door seals from Home Depot, and Clear Binder protectors from Staples. At the time, the university laboratory had twenty printers and it took about five hours to print forty shields. The shields were then shipped to Stony Brook Hospital. In this early period, shields like this one were worn by practitioners who were testing patients for the virus.
To increase productivity, the university ultimately borrowed additional 3D printers from local high schools. But the university’s actions also inspired other nearby institutions which had 3D printers to use their printers to produce shields. The local library, for example, also began producing face shields.
As the Stony Brook lab became more comfortable producing masks, students began refining the mask-making process. Initially, students cut the foam used for the face shield top by hand. However, this was not only slow and tedious, it also sometimes led to mistakes. Improperly cut foam did not fit in the shield and needed to be discarded. John Berwick, one of the faculty/staff members tasked with developing and producing the masks, began using a laser printer to cut the sheets. This was not only faster, it also ensured that the foam could be correctly fitted to the mask without any gaps.
During the spring of 2020, elastic became increasingly difficult to obtain. Confronted with the question of how face shields could be worn without an elastic band, Berwick and his colleagues experimented, first with rubber bands and then with an experimental back piece which allowed the user to adjust the band. Berwick designed this band to be cut using a laser printer, developing a pattern which used material efficiently to avoid waste.
Ultimately, the iCreate! laboratory produced several thousand face shields.
