ALVIN — An industrial design professor and his assistant are putting 3D printing to good use
towards preventing the spread of coronavirus.
Staff at Alvin Community College wanted to put their knowledge to good use during this pandemic,
Industrial Design Department Chair James Langley said.
A 3D printer makes the shield for a medical face shield at the ACC Industrial Design lab.
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After discussing what he could do to help with his dean, he said, he and his lab assistant went right
to work to making face shields.
“Jeffery Parks, dean of human performance technology, asked if I could make some PPE for
community medical personnel,” Langley said. “And I started planning with my lab assistant.”
Thy used a free 3D printing resource to create the face shield, he said, and he was able to use the
STL file to create what was needed from there.
“After researching a ready-made design, I found the files needed to 3D-print the parts, along with a
materials list to assemble the shields, and I used those,” Langley said.
He then designed his own straps to hold the shield in place, he said.
“We were able to use lanyards to make the straps to hold the visors in place,” Langley said. “And
after assembling the straps with the visor, we were good to go.”
Langley’s lab assistant, William Scheurer, is regularly working at the school’s lab to manufacture the
face shields, he said.
“We were just manufacturing 20 more masks and dropping them off to the dean of legal and health
sciences, Dr. Stacey Ebert,” Langley said. “And she’s been distributing them to local health
facilities.”
Community Health Network is one of the local facilities that has received the shields, Community
Health Network Chief Admin Officer Penny Pabst said.
“We’ve been using them in our dental clinic, and even on top of the N-95, the headband works really
well,” Pabst said.
Pabst said that Community Health Network has had trouble fulfilling their need in PPE during this
pandemic, so this, and any help, she said, is greatly appreciated.
“If we could continue to acquire medical-grade masks, we would hope to do so, but that’s very
difficult at the time, so we hope to receive more of the masks from ACC,” Pabst said. “The masks
are being used in both medical and dental care, and we are very grateful”
Alexa Crenshaw for The Facts.
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