Reston's Nova Labs Making Masks, Face Shields For Area Hospitals

RESTON, VA — When a problem emerges, makers get making. That's been the guiding philosophy of Nova Labs throughout the coronavirus pandemic. The makerspace in Reston has been producing mask parts and face shields for frontline responders for the past several weeks.

"We're pretty much a light manufacturing facility, but they like to say we have a wood shop, metal shop, blacksmithing, crafting, and electronics," said Margie Foster, a Nova Labs volunteer. "People make drones there. People build 3D printers there. We have laser cutters."

The lab also offers classes and other programs for the Reston community, including kids robotics.

"We're a very service-oriented, volunteer corps that runs the space," Foster said. "We tend to have a very active, very altruistic spirit to it and very much a bunch of people that jump in and love to solve a problem."

The problem Nova Labs has been tackling the last month or so has been how to quickly provide personal protective equipment (PPE) to the first responders facing the new coronavirus, also known as COVID-19.

"When PPE became an issue that was clearly going to be a problem, people started to just dig in right away to figure out what we could do to fill the gap and how we could contribute, how we could leverage our space in our community," Foster said.

Paul Chase, the lab's 3D printer shop steward, began tinkering with different designs for masks and face shields.

"It was really started by Josef Prusa, actually a manufacturer of 3D printers and he made the design and started distributing that around," Chase said. "We saw that it was going through and tried to get ahead of the coronavirus a bit by printing them ourselves."

It takes Nova Labs about an hour to print out a face shield frame using a 3D printer. The frame is then attached to a plastic shield and elastic headband, which takes a few minutes to assemble. Eric Offerman of LaserThing.com and Brad Hess at Makersmiths.org have been cutting the PETG sheets for the shields and donating them to the lab.

"There's almost a dozen support folks where it's not just printing the parts, it's getting the face shield laser cut and then the little elastic headband," Chase said. "We have people that don't have printers helping to assemble and folks who can drive around and consolidate parts as well."

Besides the shields, Nova Labs volunteers are also sewing masks and printing mask straps to keep the elastic off of the back of people’s ears for long periods of time.

"We’re also partnering now with a maker who created a reusable respirator and tested a combination of furnace filter material and cotton to prove it meets requirements of protection," Foster said.

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So far, Nova Labs has donated more than 500 masks and shields to medical facilities around the D.C. metro region, including George Washington Hospital, Howard University Hospital, Children's National Hospital, and Washington DC VA Medical Center.

For the Nova Labs volunteers and the members of the community who have stepped up to help them deliver the masks and shields, this manufacturing effort has been a shared achievement during the coronavirus.

"I'm super grateful to have something to do at this time," Foster said. "I think this is a hard time to sit on the sidelines and stay inside, but you can't. It's hard not to help. So I think that sentiment is fairly well shared throughout the community."

According to Chase, one of the other benefits of Nova Labs' coronavirus response is that it helps raise awareness in the community about the maker movement and why people should become makers.

"This distributed manufacturing where we can step up almost instantly," he said. "We definitely don't have the output of a factory and we will likely to be replaced in this effort by factories, as they spool up. But we can get started with almost no lead time."

Anyone who would like to help Nova Labs with its mask and face-shield making effort or make a donation can do so on the Nova Labs' website.

Also see ...

• Herndon Neighbors Wish Woman Happy Birthday Despite Coronavirus
• Reston Clothing Shop Donating Dresses To Coronavirus Responders
• Herndon's Weird Brothers Coffee Adapts To Coronavirus

This is one in a series of articles Patch is writing about how Herndon residents are responding to the coronavirus pandemic. If you have a story to share, email Michael O'Connell or post it on the Reston Facebook page. Small business owners can also add their the name of their business to our list of open businesses in Herndon and Reston.