COVID-19
We are working round the clock with volunteers in Ithaca, NYC, and around the world to produce critical PPE for health care workers who are working with COVID-19. Want to join? Check out this website, or send an email to Profs. Kirstin Petersen (kirstin at cornell dot edu) or Amy Kuceyeski (amk2012 at cornell dot edu). Below are updates on what we have accomplished since we started on March 24th 2020.
Face Shields
We started production of face shields on the afternoon of March 24th and now have approximately 120 volunteers in the movement and average 1,000+ face shields per day. These volunteers include individuals, companies, public maker spaces, and university departments. Many are local, but some span the nation and the world. We are coordinating efforts with PPE volunteer organizations in NYC, Chicago, Los Angeles, the UK, and South Africa. Many architecture companies and schools are further leading their own efforts now. We owe special thanks to Profs. James Shin (Weill), Jenny Sabin (AAP), and Francois Guimbretiere (CIS) who have pulled much of the load, as well as the Ithaca Generator for all of their incredible work. In our network alone, we have donated over 13,000 face shields, mainly to NYC; more than 7,500 of those came from 60 volunteers situated in and around Ithaca, and many of those Cornell students or alums. Through individuals, Cornell, and public schools we have collected ~8000 transparencies, and recently got a 50,000 transparency donation from GBC, of which we immediately sent ~45,000 to NYCmakesPPE. We have a team of IBM retirees lead by ORIE Prof. Brenda Dietrich working to streamline material, production, and delivery. The design we use was also recently approved on the NIH 3Dprint site.
Simultaneously, we pursued an injection molded design. This effort was led by Prof. Nils Napp and ECE MEng student Kowin Shi. We had that tool up and running at Protomolds within 10 days of the project start date, delivering 2-3,000 visors per day to Weill Medical College. We raised another $10K donation to pay for a second bigger tool that can produce 6,000/day. NYCmakesPPE is currently leveraging this mold. Our target, similar to the target for the 3D printed frames, is primarily community based hospitals which have not been able to keep up with the dwindling supply and increasing price of face shields. These efforts, although inefficient, have enabled us to setup a supply with an incredibly quick turnaround time.
Other Designs
We are also working with UW, Weill, and Cayuga Medical Center on other designs including tube connectors and PAPR hoods.
Media
