Tri-Valley Duo Makes Protective Gear With 3D Printer: Coronavirus

LIVERMORE, CA — A Tri-Valley couple with a knack for optical science is mobilizing their 3D printer in the fight against the new coronavirus.

June Yu and Brian McGinnis are a couple of "tech nerds" who can print up to 15 face shields per day in their garage, Yu said. They're keeping local health care professionals at lower-risk facilities, such nursing or senior homes, stocked.

Yu and McGinnis have made their design public and are calling on universities and others with 3D printers to create personal protective equipment for their local health care workers.

"If we can get everyone to print something just for their local community, then we can help bridge the gap temporarily," said Yu, who has also been busy sewing fabric face masks.

Face shields, unlike masks, are impenetrable, McGinnis said.

The fight is personal for Yu and McGinnis, whose daughter lives in New York City, one of the places that has been hit hardest by the pandemic, according to the Johns Hopkins University's list of places with the most reported COVID-19 deaths.

Yu took to sewing cloth masks for others in their community. Soon after, the manufacturer of their 3D printer sent customers a digital blueprint for a face shield that could be built with a 3D printer and some other materials. The 3D printer creates a headband-like structure that sits across the forehead and can be fastened around the back of the head by a strap.

A clear plastic sheet serves as the shield, which is attached to the headband and hangs over the face. Yu dug up some transparency slides from her graduate school days decades ago to serve as the shields for their devices.

But McGinnis, an engineer, said he soon discovered the European-designed model wasn't an ideal fit for American makers. While a three-hole punch is standard in America, a four-hole punch is standards overseas, he said. This made attaching the shield difficult.

McGinnis continued refining the design, tweaking it to use half the plastic the original model required and allowing it to be fastened by more readily accessible materials such as a parachute cord or shoelace.

The first face shield version took about 3½ hours to make, but he said his latest, slimmer model takes just 1½ hours.

The couple decided to make the design public so other creators don't have to waste time making tweaks that McGinnis has already made. They're also looking for takers and ask that organizations or health care providers in need of face shields will contact them here.

Find out how to use your 3D printer to create face shields here. Their model has also been published on the National Institutes of Health website, which features other 3D models that can be used to create protective equipment.

Watch the 3D printer in action:

See how the shield works: