ICAT Playdate — 3D Printing PPE for Covid
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has stressed the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) for both medical professionals and civilians looking to appropriately protect themselves. To address this ongoing need, a response team consisting of 75 faculty, staff, and students across Virginia Tech worked to i) fabricate critical PPE for local hospitals, ii) fabricate nasal swabs to increase testing capacity, iii) evaluate the efficacy of open source face mask designs, and iv) design rapidly-manufacturable alternatives to in-demand medical devices. In particular, this presentation will highlight a selection of the projects led by the response team that heavily leveraged 3D printing technologies, which enabled rapid design iterations and agile and distributed crowd-sourced manufacturing. Through this technology, the team was able to produce, assemble, and ship thousands of pieces of PPE to local hospitals including 1500 face shields, and 300 HEPA shells.
Speakers: Chris Williams and Joseph Kubalak
Date: September 25, 2020
Time: 9am est