QF partner university produces laser-cut face shields to fight COVID-19
The project by the fabrication laboratory team at VCUarts Qatar is supporting frontline healthcare workers in Qatar
EQUIPMENT designed to protect healthcare workers against COVID-19 is being developed in the laboratories of a Qatar Foundation (QF) partner university.
The Fabrication Lab or Fab Lab - Team at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar (VCUarts Qatar) has been working with a group of fabricators and universities in the US for the past two months to produce protective face shields, supporting efforts to keep those at the frontline of the ongoing global pandemic safe.
After numerous prototypes were made and tested, the team is now producing its first shields.
Christopher Buchakjian, Digital Fabrication Lab and Woodshop Coordinator at VCUarts Qatar, said “We started gathering information and doing research early on, finding that there were many 3D-printable face masks available around the world, as well as other items such as parts for ventilators. So, we began making, printing and testing our own prototypes.
“At this point, we were testing the prototypes that other groups were designing. We needed to test the feasibility of our facility to produce these items. At moments like this, when lots of groups are working on designs, it was our strategy to get connected to as many groups as possible and work with pre-existing designs that have already proved to be successful.”
Already within the Fab Lab at VCUarts Qatar were an array of valves and splitters devices that allow one connection to be split into multiple connections - for respiratory equipment, meaning that the team already had vital material to produce effective face shields.
“We decided not to use 3D printers, but instead use our laser cutters to produce the face shields,” Buchakjian added. “This is due to the type of material we have on-hand and the specific type of 3D printers we operate.”
The team communicated with Dr Nandakumar Pillai, manager of occupational safety and hygiene at the QF Primary Healthcare Center, in order to assess the value that the shields could bring and to also enable him to run the rule over their prototype and ensure that it met the criteria for use by healthcare professionals. Shankar Padmanabhan, assistant coordinator at the VCUarts Qatar Fab Lab, said “We have been communicating with health workers to go over the details, and to adapt our designs to fit their needs - whether it is the shape of the shield, the way the headrests sit on the insert strap, and the way the head strap attaches in the back and all these design details taken a little time, so we have developed many prototypes.”
Buchakjian said, “We made different versions and ultimately created one that we and our working group in the US were happy with, so now we are producing the first batch of shields.”
At the moment, the masks are being made specifically for doctors and other frontline healthcare workers who have direct interaction with patients. However, as people working in other fields may also require them, the Fab Lab team
which also includes technicians Dana Ladki, Eman Makki and Saga Elkabash, all of whom are VCUarts Qatar alumni have the capacity to change the design and produce more masks
Contributors to the project also included Andrea Cecetka, VCUarts Qatar’s Deputy Safety Officer, and Jeff Solin, a computer science teacher at Lane Technical College Preparatory High School in Chicago, US, who designed the Solin Flatpack Face Shield and put the designs on the internet, together with an assembly video and illustrations.