Students’ frontline medical prototypes

GEELONG Tech School has developed prototype medical equipment to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 among health professionals.

Collaborating with industry professionals, the school has adapted face shields and intubation boxes for medical practitioners as they seek to strengthen coronavirus protection measures in hospitals.

An intubation box has been adapted from models used on the frontline overseas. It is presently in operation at Geelong’s St John of God hospital, with several more being custom built for the hospital and its metropolitan counterparts.

The prototyping and field testing of face shields remains ongoing, with the design acting to prevent droplet transfer.

Geelong Tech School program facilitator Lachlan Patrick has guided the collaboration, design and prototyping of the equipment.

Mr Patrick has experience gained from working in Vanuatu with Field Ready, a humanitarian engineering organisation that uses rapid prototyping and on-theground design to aid communities in need, as well as in India with Global Village Project.

Geelong Tech School director Leanne Collins said the school had responded quickly to requests from the local medical profession.

“Our health professionals are working tirelessly in a high-risk environment every day,” Ms Collins said. “We see our prototyping and development of products to protect their health as vitally important.”

Field Ready is also working in partnership with the Geelong Tech School to develop a program for all Geelong secondary schools to develop skills in collaborative design and emerging technologies.

Students will address humanitarian challenges and have the opportunity to help design prototypes for crisis.