UAFS employs 3-D printers to produce protective gear

FORT SMITH -- The University of Arkansas at Fort Smith's College of Applied Science and Technology is utilizing 3-D printers to produce parts for plastic face shields in response to a nationwide need for personal protective equipment.

Derek Goodson, lead faculty member for computer graphic and animation technology at UAFS, started testing prototypes almost two weeks ago after Cheryl Anderson, a local attorney whose husband works in both River Valley local hospitals as an emergency room physician, shared a need for such equipment, the university said. Anderson reached out to 3-D printers across the region, but few have the capacity of the UAFS printing lab.

"We have folks all over who are printing these, contributing masks, because clearly there's a need," Anderson said in a statement issued through the university.

Goodson said in an interview Wednesday that UAFS is trying to do whatever it can to keep health care professionals safe while they are trying to take care of people who may have covid-19, with the hope of being able to meet the need of local institutions, at least with face shields, over the next few weeks.

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The 3-D elements of the face shields being printed at UAFS follow Prusa Research's open-source protective face shield design for 3-D printers, the news release states. Goodson has manufactured one component, which will be used in conjunction with PETG 0.5-mm transparent sheets and elastic banding to complete the shield. Anderson, in turn, is managing the collaborative effort by several local businesses to make the completed pieces a reality.

"They made the file open source after going through iterations with different departments of health overseas to come up with a model for the face shields," Goodson said in the news release.

Goodson said in the interview that UAFS is currently producing the head bands for the face shields. It produced a supporting chin piece until this past weekend, when it was deemed unnecessary. The university had produced 212 head bands as of Tuesday.

"Hopefully, through this process, if anybody else has run into a situation where they need some, where they think it would be helpful in the medical community, as long as we have the plastic, we can keep printing," Goodson said.

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The university said each 3-D piece takes about four hours to print, with 14 machines running at a time in the UAFS lab. Small batches of fully assembled shields were delivered to Mercy Hospital Fort Smith and Baptist Health-Van Buren for field testing Monday morning.

State Desk on 04/09/2020

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