With a deluge of patients suffering from COVID-19 expected to flood hospitals in the very near future, UCLA engineers are part of a quickly growing team working to build up supplies of personal protective equipment for health care workers.
Bioengineering professor Jacob Schmidt has started to manufacture surgical face shields at the UCLA Innovation Lab — the “makerspace” on the first and second floors of UCLA Samueli School of Engineering’s Boelter Hall. Under normal circumstances, the lab would be teeming with students using its 3D printers, laser cutters and other tools on class projects as well as ideas of their own creation.
The head frames of the face shields are 3D-printed and the shields are laser-cut from sheets of clear plastic. Schmidt is working with Doug Daniels, director of the Lux Labs at the UCLA Library, which also offers 3D printing and other creative…
