{"id":211373,"date":"2020-04-09T16:53:18","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T20:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/?p=211373"},"modified":"2020-05-06T09:28:22","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T13:28:22","slug":"racing-against-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/2020\/04\/09\/racing-against-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Racing Against Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Montclair State\u2019s MIX Lab team started producing face shields on 3D printers amid the growing COVID-19 pandemic, they quickly realized it wasn\u2019t enough. The team needed to figure out how to make more \u2013 and fast.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe need for PPE (personal protective equipment) is at scale,\u201d says Iain Kerr, co-director, with Jason Frasca, of the MIX Lab and professor of Innovation Design. Kerr reports that in northern New Jersey alone, the demand is for hundreds of thousands of face shields, if not more.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.S. needs 3.5 billion masks. And this region \u2013 the megalopolis from Boston to Washington, D.C. \u2013 needs over 200 million shields,\u201d says Kerr. \u201c3D printing 350 a day was not the way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

The MIX Lab<\/a>, founded in 2015 and housed in Montclair State University\u2019s Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation<\/a> (FCE&I), is a facility where students and community members work together to solve problems using innovation and digitally mediated \u201cmaking\u201d \u2013 aka 3D printing.<\/p>\n

To address the need for better design and process in making mass quantities of face shields, the MIX Lab has joined with Montclair Design Week<\/a>\/DesignShed and Michael Rees<\/a> of William Paterson University. The team is now collaborating on everything from research to design to supply chain management to hospital interface, volunteer recruitment, social media outreach and fundraising.<\/p>\n

On the design end, the result of the collaboration is new open-source face shields that can be produced more cheaply (potentially less than $1\/unit as compared to more than $5\/unit) and faster than those the MIX Lab was 3D printing. \u201cWe have two designs, one closed at top and one open,\u201d says Kerr. \u201cThey\u2019re both super cheap.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says the designs use \u201cvery little 3D printing and a ton of ingenuity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Altarik Banks \u201918, innovation and design researcher for the MIX Lab.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cYou can literally make these face shields with scissors and a hole punch and some binding covers and elastic streamers,\u201d says Altarik Banks \u201918, innovation and design researcher for MIX Lab and design principal of the collective design studio HOMA.<\/p>\n

Banks credits team member Alex McDonald for many of the improvements. \u201cIn terms of production, now we have them cut in a streamline process. There’s a drill press, a jig, a paper cutter,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Currently, the team has converted the Montclair Innovation Lab at Lackawanna Plaza into an assembly line where Montclair Design Week is coordinating volunteers. \u201cWhen the machine works perfectly, we can get over 1,000 shields a day out the door \u2013 and they are what the hospitals want,\u201d Kerr says.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the 3D printers have been freed up for specialty projects.<\/p>\n

By the end of April, more than 15,000 face shields had been delivered \u2014 with more in production \u2014 to RWJBarnabas Health, University Hospital, St. Joseph\u2019s Regional Medical Center in Paterson, Mountainside Hospital, Hackensack University Medical Center Palisades, The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, and Montclair State University Emergency Medical Services.<\/p>\n

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The MIX Lab received special permission to remain open and is practicing appropriate social distancing throughout the work. Shown from left, Altarik Banks, Alex McDonald and Iain Kerr.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The only components needed are more money and more volunteers \u2013\u00a0and that is changing fast.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can fabricate the pieces at 1,500 per hour,\u201d Kerr says. \u201cIf we had the materials and we had a volunteer force available, we could be making a huge amount.\u201d<\/p>\n

To make that happen, the University has set up a crowdfunding\/giving page<\/a>. In addition, the Feliciano Center reallocated $10,000 in 3D printing supplies no longer needed for educational purposes as a result of the transition to an online delivery model and received $17,000 in donations, 100% of which will be used to purchase materials.<\/p>\n

The lab has received generous support from some of the University’s supporters, including The Provident Bank Foundation and alumnus Joe Cucci ’66.<\/p>\n

“How does a regular person like me help in a pandemic? My support for this effort helped make 1,684 face shields to provide to three hospitals in New Jersey including the one where me and my siblings were born,\u201d says Cucci. \u201cIt is a great thing to be able to do.”<\/p>\n

Beyond its own assembly line, the MIX Lab team is working to coordinate the makers\u2019 community across New Jersey utilizing a Facebook page (New Jersey Makers Response to COVID-19<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to get people to switch to this family of designs. It sounds kinda cool to have this 3D high tech method, but if you move to this simpler method, you can make thousands,\u201d says Kerr.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of our mission is to innovate as well as collaborate with others \u2013 whether that be the global makers\u2019 community or local higher education,\u201d says Feliciano School of Business Clinical Specialist and MIX Lab Co-Director Jason Frasca. \u201cWe want to move people to better, faster designs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCore to the Center\u2019s work is collaboration with a rich ecosystem of global and local talent that helps blur the line between where MSU\u2019s campus ends and where the entrepreneurial community begins,\u201d says FCE&I Executive Director Carley Graham Garcia. \u201cIt is this innovation that got noticed by local hospitals and health care providers as COVID-19 began to rapidly spread around the world and in our own backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Says Banks, \u201cIt’s really powerful and really impactful that our product is reaching the front line workers. I’m really excited about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

To help the MIX Lab protect those on the front lines, visit the giving page set up for this purpose<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Completed
MIX Lab and partners aim to produce more than 1,000 face shields per day to meet demand at the front lines of the COVID-19 battle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Story by Staff Writer\u00a0Mary Barr Mann.<\/a><\/p>\n

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