Home-Based Face Shield Factory
A Friends Community School family has started making protective gear for hospital workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they’ve put the school’s 3D printer to work on the effort.
Pre-quarantine, Friends Community School 5th grader Jet was using his family’s 3D printer to create Dungeons and Dragons figurines. Now he and his parents are using it to manufacture face shields for local hospital workers. They recently borrowed the FCS 3D printer to increase production.
Jet and his parents are printing plastic headbands, using model building codes shared online by 3D printing experts. They hole-punch transparent plastic sheets and snap them onto the headbands to create the face shields. Check out the video of the printing process that Jet and his father, Chris, made below.
Printing one headband takes roughly one hour and thirty minutes. To double production, FCS Director of Technology Sheldon Henry and Facilities Manager Dan Miller coordinated the six-feet-apart hand-off of the school’s 3D printer to Jet’s mother, Vivian. After overcoming some learning curves--the FCS printer uses biodegradable filament made from cornstarch and a different software--Jet and his family printed another three-dozen headbands.
Frontline workers have praised the quality of the homemade face shields. Over the last several weeks, Jet and his parents have delivered over 150 face shields to Holy Cross Hospital and the University of Maryland Prince George’s Hospital in Cheverly.
Located in College Park, MD, Friends Community School is a progressive Quaker K-8 day school, founded on the belief that every child is a valued member of our community. We offer a challenging curriculum imbued with strong values of equality, integrity, community, environmental stewardship, simplicity and peaceful conflict resolution, rooted in our Quaker heritage.
Friends Community School
5901 Westchester Park Drive
College Park, Maryland 20740
301-441-2100
5901 Westchester Park Drive
College Park, Maryland 20740
301-441-2100
