![Rich Oakley and Christopher Van, both of Middleboro, are 3D printing and laser cutting PPE face shields at their Maker Space in the Green School in Middleboro on Thursday, March 26, 2020. They are one of the few in Massachusetts to be working hospital oversight to make a mask that will be approved to protect medical workers. The two men have been working non-stop since Saturday, March 21st on rapid prototypes and have gone through 11 iterations of the face shield. [Alyssa Stone/The Enterprise]](https://www.tauntongazette.com/gcdn/authoring/2020/03/29/NTDG/ghows-WL-a201b814-5fb9-2972-e053-0100007fa61a-d97d3778.jpeg?width=660&height=446&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
MIDDLEBORO — Inside the BoroBot makerspace, a dozen 3-D printers are crafting the newest version of a modified face shield design aiming to protect health care workers battling COVID-19.
It’s been an almost nonstop week of production for BoroBot owner Rich Oakley and Director of Technology Christopher Van, along with a small team, as they refine iteration after iteration of face shield designs, with revisions from a Boston hospital, that will go directly to that hospital.
The latest version of the shield is at the Institutional Review Board level at the hospital, which Van and Oakley said is too premature in the operation to name publicly as of yet, for official testing and possible approval, with the goal of passing off the operation to have the equipment manufactured en masse by a large-scale Boston corporation.
“We kind of keep asking ourselves, why are we here?” Oakley said….
