UMass Amherst Libraries, members of the All-Campus Makerspace, Institute for Applied Life Sciences (IALS) and multiple faculty and students from Engineering and the Life Sciences began working together in mid-March to establish including those to coordinate resources to fabricate supplemental personal protective equipment (PPE) to support medical staff on the frontlines of the COVID-19 battle.
From the Libraries, Sarah Hutton, head of student success and engagement; Steve Acquah, digital media lab coordinator and adjunct associate professor of chemistry; and Dennis Spencer, 3D printing services supervisor are three of the more than 80 faculty and staff now working across disciplines and centers at UMass Amherst, using Microsoft Teams to share information and designs approved by the medical community to fabricate items such as frames for plastic face shields.
鈥淲e know of earlier efforts looking at producing materials by people who want to help,鈥 explains Hutton. 鈥淯niversity efforts first centered around making sure we were bringing the best science to bear on designs, and consulting with the NIH and health care professionals, before we started prototyping and producing.鈥
Even though the Libraries鈥 physical buildings are closed, staff from the Libraries鈥 Digital Media Lab have been printing component parts (visors, clips, and hinged clips) for face shields on Makerbot and Ultimaker printers and are providing prototypes for a ventilator splitting-mechanism that could help alleviate the anticipated shortage of ventilators.
The Science and Engineering Library team supported a nationwide medical librarian collaborative research initiative to contribute to a critical open-access collection of pertinent research, face shield designs and reviews and patents. This , created by Hutton, is actively utilized by the team at UMass Amherst, and has also attracted other institutions regionally and nationally to draw from the collected expertise to help support other localized fabrication efforts.
about UMass researchers鈥 efforts to fabricate supplemental personal protective equipment.