Bay Mills Community College, a tribal college in Michigan, received a request from its community two weeks ago to make face masks for local workers providing key services during the coronavirus emergency. The school’s advanced manufacturing program got to work, designing a lightweight, reusable face shield.
Using 3D printing technology, they plan to produce 3,000 shields in three weeks. They’re already manufacturing them at a rate of about 150 per day. The face shields will go to eight local organizations – two hospitals, a health center, a fire department, a correctional facility, two police departments and a volunteer ambulance corps.
“People are just amazed at the roll-out of this …” said Dr. Christopher Griffen, technical director at the Great Lakes Composite Institute and an instructor at Bay Mills Community College. “We were able to really put this out fast.”
It took “a lot of cooperation” to get the product “out the door and into the community as quickly as possible,” he added.
Leading a regional effort, Bay Mills Community College is collaborating with Eastern Upper Peninsula Intermediate School District teachers and Lake Superior State University staff. The three educational institutions are using their 3D printers to bring the face shields to life.
The scope of the project has already grown. The team started with a goal of 500 face shields, said Dr. Kimberly Muller, dean of Lake Superior State University’s College of Innovation and Solutions, but “the demand far exceeded that.”
Demand is likely to go up as COVID-19 cases climb. As of Monday afternoon, the state of Michigan had over 15,700 coronavirus cases and 617 deaths with workers in essential services scrambling for protective gear.
