As hospitals struggle to obtain personal protective equipment to protect their staff from COVID-19, one St. Thomas student was motivated by unused materials from the engineering department to start making face shields to donate to hospitals across Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Collin Goldbach, a mechanical engineering major and senior at St. Thomas, decided to use his design skills and the 3D printers from the create[space], Playful Learning Lab and the school of engineering to make the face shields. Goldbach and his team have been working out of the Facilities and Design Center on South Campus, where he said the untouched materials inspired him to start making the shields.
“We started thinking of all of the resources that St. Thomas had bought for a semester’s and a summer’s worth for students to use that just aren’t going anywhere, and we figured there was a better way to put those to use,” Goldbach said.
Goldbach poses for a photo wearing a face shield. (Photo courtesy of Collin Goldbach)
Goldbach started making the masks in early April. Since then, he and his team have produced 450 shields and donated them to Hennepin County Medical Center, the Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis, Hopkins Health Services, Abbott Northwestern Hospital, Boynton Dental Clinic and Aurora Hospital in Wisconsin.
The six 3D printers used to make the masks can produce one shield every 90 minutes, which means the students operating the printers can make between 60 and 70 masks every 24 hours. The students helping with the project are split into three groups to work more efficiently.
“I run all of the printers, one person prepares all of the face shields that go onto the printed parts, and then a third person assembles them,” Goldbach said.
Three of the six 3D printers used for production. (Photo courtesy of Collin Goldbach)
Manuela Hill-Munoz, the director of innovation and change making at St. Thomas, gave Goldbach the green light to use the 3D printers from the create[space].
Since starting the project, Hill-Munoz says she is proud of the work they’ve done and the progress they made
“I was so happy to see that our Tommies really believe in our mission of advancing the common good, and wanted to make a difference in whichever way they could,” Hill-Munoz said. “The fact that students came together and said ‘Hey, can we use these resources?’ for me is really heartwarming because it really means that our mission as a university comes to life.”
While Goldbach graduates in May, he encouraged students who want to join in the mask production to send an email to gold9811@stthomas.edu to find out how they can get involved and keep production running after he leaves St. Thomas.
Leila Weah can be reached at weah7721@stthomas.edu.