Covid Maker Response

About a week ago we learned that a local New Jersey design company called Tangible Creative was part of a massive volunteer effort to provide face shields to NYC hospitals. We were even more intrigued to learn that they had been pulled into the action by a group of Columbia University librarians who needed additional 3D printing bandwidth to meet a growing demand for DIY faceshields!  You can read the full story of how the Columbia University and Tangible Creative collaboration began here.

Not long after the above article was written, 3D printing juggernaut Makerbot joined the effort, dramatically increasing bandwidth.

We immediately reached out to see how we could help, and they put us to work printing face shield frames on as many 3D printers as we could gather.

If you are interested in contributing funds or adding your 3D printer to the effort, you can learn more on their website here.

I asked Eugene and Nevaris from Tangible Creative for some details about their efforts to date. Here is what they reported:

ZD (Zaic Design): How many face shields have you delivered so far?

TC (Tangible Creative): We have produced and distributed over 7000 face shields and are looking to produce and distribute over 15K over the coming week or two. This is in collaboration with MakerBot and Librarians at Columbia University. We have centralized this effort at www.covidmakerresponse.com. This is the hub for the collective effort we have organized.

ZD: How many people are working on your team, including those working remotely? (You can include 4 people now from our side)

TC: There are 5 techs running prints between Tangible Creative and MakerBot. (We are trying to have the minimum # of techs working at the same time while observing strict social protocols on distance and face protection, hand protection, etc.)

There are 6 people working every day to coordinate the overall effort including printing, distribution, demand, communication, fundraising, PR.

We have 2 people volunteering to help with the PR side of things.

There’s 1 person in charge of coordinating pickups at the 92Y side. 

There are easily 10 people that have been helping out on the assembly side at the 92Y.

There’s two drivers volunteering to pick up prints (but one that has been working every day for 12 days without stopping.)

Let’s add the 4 people from your team! Thank you! There’s two others on our slack channel with MakerBot though not really sure what they are doing. So let’s say 30 people!

Helpful to write this down because I have been wondering how many people have been involved in this effort!

ZD: How many hospitals have you delivered to?

TC: Below are the main hospitals that we have delivered our product to. There are also many small organizations that we have delivered to that are not on this list. This includes a funeral home run by a man who’s daughter called us with an SOS that her father’s company had no protection when they were picking up the many bodies of the deceased.

ZD: Have you been able to secure funding for these face shields from any of the hospitals you are supplying to?

TC: It’s difficult to get funding from hospitals. They are not willing to pay for these and a lot of doctors and nurses are getting let go for bringing their own equipment to work. It is a very depressing and annoying situation. That is why we are just donating it all and crowd funding to continue making more. 

ZD: Do you have any photos of your team we can use in the blog post?

TC: Sure!!