
Ask HN: Seeking funding for hospital 3D printed face shields - rrauenza
I&#x27;m volunteering with Nexus Maker in Sunnyvale by providing 3d prints to them for masks for hospitals.  
This got a bit more real this morning with<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;health&#x2F;2020&#x2F;03&#x2F;25&#x2F;coronavirus-patients-do-not-resucitate&#x2F;<p>&gt; The conversations are driven by the realization that the risk to staff amid dwindling stores of protective equipment — such as masks, gowns and gloves — may be too great to justify the conventional response when a patient “codes,” and their heart or breathing stops.<p>I am going to paste in a request from their VP, Jim, that he has been passing to his contacts.
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rrauenza
<Message from Jim Schrempp of Maker Nexus>

Hi,

I don't do solicitation, but this is a good enough cause that now I am. I've
become the person I never thought I'd be. I am personally volunteering with a
non-profit that is making a critical health care item and giving them away to
hospitals. Read on...

I'm writing in the hope you would pass this on, hoping it finds some corporate
philanthropist who would be interested in funding this excellent cause I
volunteer for making face shields needed by health care workers. I thought you
might have a network that reaches far.

You probably know that there is a critical shortage of personal protective
equipment (PPE) for health care workers in this crisis. I know of one nurse
who works at a major hospital in San Jose say, "we're making face shields from
shower curtains and hot glue". I asked a doctor friend who works at a free
clinic in SF if they are running out of face shields and he said, "are you
kidding? We have never had any."

You probably don't know that the non-profit I volunteer for (Maker Nexus) is
busy making them and giving them away! We've turned our whole makerspace into
a face shield factory. It's a war and we are in the thick of it.

Our place is 3D printing headbands and using our industrial laser cutter to
make the shields. Add some elastic and a video on how to assemble these and
off they go to places like Valley Medical Center. We're sending 500 to them on
Friday and 1000 to a local Kaiser hospital next Wednesday. We have way more
requests to fill. Local hospitals need this stuff.

We can make about 85 a day in house, but a lot of people in the bay area have
their own 3D printers and we have invited them to make the parts at home and
drop them off at Maker Nexus for packaging with other parts and shipment. We
have plans to be at 1,000 faceshields a day in the very near future. That
could really make a difference in keeping health care workers safe so that
they are there when we need them. Imagine a time where the hospitals have only
half their staff because of sickness! Not only will new corona virus patients
have no one to take care of them, but there also won't be staff to handle
broken legs, heart attacks, car accident victims. This could affect us all.

And we're working US wide. We had a contact in Pennsylvania that was making
the 3D printed parts of the face shields but did not have a way to do the
laser cut part. We shipped him 300 of the parts he needed.

And we're helping the world. The original design of the face shield was made
by a company called Prusa in The Czech Republic. We worked with local
hospitals and evolved the design significantly to make it more effective. We
have shared our work back with Prusa so they can update the plans they share
with the world.

So to the point. These face shields cost us about $5 each in materials. Not
even counting our rent of $18,000 a month. And utilities. And maintenance on
the equipment. And other stuff. For us to ramp up to 1,000 a day means we have
to raise $5,000 a day. We're getting a lot of $100, $200, and even an
occasional $1,000 in donations. This is fantastic, but won't get us to 1,000
face shields a day.

$5,000 a day is a huge amount of money for a small non-profit like Maker
Nexus, but to give protection to 1,000 health care workers is a tremendous
impact. And we can do that every day if we have the money. We are not going to
have to do this forever, but right now we can make a huge difference. We need
this money now if we are going to get these hospitals and clinics the
protection they need.

FYI, I'm sending this plea on to other friends as well. But if you know of
some philanthropist that would be willing to make an impact, I'd love a chance
to tell them about us. Please send this email on to anyone at all.

I'm including some links below that will give you more info - one of them is a
video we just did today for the hospitals.

Maker Nexus on KTVU:

[https://www.ktvu.com/news/covid-19-sunnyvale-company-
designi...](https://www.ktvu.com/news/covid-19-sunnyvale-company-
designing-3d-protective-masks-to-meet-demand)

Our effort: [http://makernexus.org/covid19](http://makernexus.org/covid19)

Details on the face shields:
[http://makernexuswiki.com/index.php?title=3D_printed_face_sh...](http://makernexuswiki.com/index.php?title=3D_printed_face_shields)

Our assembly video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKqDUExM4Q8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKqDUExM4Q8)

Thanks for reading. Be safe.

Jim \-- Jim Schrempp Maker Nexus Board Member
[http://makernexus.org](http://makernexus.org)

