Members of the Brea Olinda High School Robotics Team 7157 are putting their technical talents to good use to produce face shields for first responders and medical personnel in desperate need of personal protective equipment, or PPE.
What started with three team members and 60 shields has now grown to 12 members producing almost 200 shields per day. Last week, they assembled their 1000th face shield.
This is part of a larger effort organized by FIRST Robotics who have called together a network of robotics teams to assist with medical personal protective equipment.
The face shield design has a clear plastic shield that extends an inch or two in front of the user’s nose, leaving enough room to wear a surgical mask or N95 mask underneath, thus protecting the integrity of those masks and giving an extra shield against contamination.
Recently, the team assembled face shields for the Bonnie Brae Senior Hospital staff.
“The organizer was very happy with our help,” said team leader Elin. “We hope to get back out there again and use our robot, but for now we can still help make a difference in our community during these difficult times.”
A couple weeks ago, we reported on how Kyo Pineda, Title I program supervisor in OCDE’s ACCESS program, is doing her part too. Pineda has been spending much of her free time over the last couple of weeks building protective face shields using her Cricut cutting machine, a device designed to cut hundreds of materials including paper, fabric, leather and balsa wood for DIY projects.