KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) — Staff and professors at Western Michigan University are using technology to better protect health care workers on the front lines during this coronavirus pandemic.
They’re using the university’s 3D printers to produce face shields and other personal protective equipment and donating them to local hospitals.
The Information Technology Department, the Help Desk at WMU, the College of Aviation, and the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences are all joining in on the production effort.
Each shield takes about 45 minutes to make and they have enough material to create 1,500 shields, with more material on the way.
“With eight printers running simultaneously all day, we expect to make upward of at least 70 shields per day,” says, Dylan Ledbetter, assistant director of Information Technology labs and the Help Desk at WMU.
Their first shields were given to health care workers at the WMU’s Sindecuse Health Center. The team has also reached out to WMU’s Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine and hopes to provide more face shields to other hospitals that need them.
More information can be found in the provided YouTube video.