East Lansing schools use 3D printers to make masks for Sparrow medical staff fighting coronavirus
Mark JohnsonEAST LANSING — A news report gave Christian Palasty the idea and motivation to use East Lansing Public Schools' 3D printers to help in the coronavirus fight.
Palasty, director of technology for the school district, watched reports highlighting others using their printers to make protective N95 masks.
When combined with a filter, they're vital tools for medical workers across the country treating patients diagnosed with coronavirus and they're in short supply.
A test run proved successful. Now, the school district is partnering with tinkrLAB — a learning center in the Meridian Mall that teaches kids about inventing, building and making things — to make as many of the masks as possible and send them to healthcare workers, starting with those at Sparrow Hospital.
The partnership had produced about 30 masks by Wednesday afternoon.
“When we started talking yesterday, it was like, 'We have all of these printers and we have these people at home with their printers. What can we do?'” said Melissa Rabideau, tinkrLAB founder and owner. “In the maker world and in the tinker world, this is a place where we can step up and do things for the community.”
They found designs that others used and got to work. Now, there are people at their homes with printers, more than 45 tinkrLAB printers and even more in a MacDonald Middle School lab running around the clock making the masks. It takes about six hours for a printer to make one mask.
Filling a need in the community
The printers in the middle school lab whirred softly Wednesday as they created the masks, bit by bit, using a filament bought from a Grand Rapids manufacturer.
3DXTech specializes in making 3D printing filaments and accessories, including the durable MAX-G PETG being used to make the masks, said President Matt Howlett. His company is working with the East Lansing Public Schools project, as well as three to four other similar projects to supply masks to hospitals.
Providing the materials that make those masks has become a top priority for the company.
“Now, instead of trying to find the next big thing, we’re just happy to be helping people,” Howlett said.
A GoFundMe campaign is raising money to purchase more of the filament from 3DXTech. Rabideau said the goal is to raise $3,500 to purchase the material that would be provided free for the East Lansing Public Schools project and anyone with 3D printers hoping to make the masks at home.
More than $2,900 had been raised as of Wednesday afternoon.
East Lansing Public Schools Superintendent Dori Leyko posted information about the mask-making on the district’s Facebook page Tuesday night. Since then, she’s heard from other schools interested in helping and from the East Lansing Public Library, too.
“It refocuses people onto something really positive happening in the community,” Leyko said.
Seeing the growing number of people wanting to help, not just in making masks, but in helping to feed children out of school and provide items necessary for fighting the coronavirus, reminds Joe Rabideau, who is Melissa's father and helps teach classes at tinkrLAB, of the nation working together during World War II to manufacture goods for the troops and the country.
“When your business traffic comes to a grinding halt, you start looking at the other needs,” Melissa Rabideau said. “Some provided food for the medical professionals. We have 3D printers. What can we make to help fill that gap?”
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'Why not do it?'
Elijah Fink hops out of bed at the break of dawn to fire up his 3D printer.
The 19-year-old is working to set up files that will allow the machine to create the masks. Fink hopes to start producing them Wednesday or Thursday.
He built his 3D printer at tinkrLab as an assignment, and his parents surprised him by buying the machine as a birthday present. Now he has the perfect opportunity to use it.
“I always love to help people,” he said. "In our current situation, I think it would be most cruel of me not to do it. I have the technology, I have the resources to do it. Why not do it?
Contact Mark Johnson at 517-377-1026 or at majohnson2@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ByMarkJohnson.