UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Marcus Shaffer, associate professor of architecture at Penn State, and two architecture graduate students in the Stuckeman School have joined the efforts of the worldwide additive manufacturing community in 3D printing face shields that could potentially be used by doctors, nurses and health care workers, who are on the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shaffer, along with the husband and wife team of Julio Diarte and Elena Vazquez, who are both doctoral students, are 3D printing the headbands and hand-cutting the shields from transparent sheets from their respective homes in State College. They are using the online guide created by architect Jenny Sabin, which Shaffer found when researching ways he could use 3D printing to help during the pandemic.
Sabin’s lab and the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University — where Sabin is the Arthur L. and Isabel B. Wiesenberger Professor in Architecture — are collaborating with other Cornell departments to address the need for personal protective equipment (PPE) at Weill Cornell Medical Center in an initiative called “Project PPE.”
Shaffer said he was compelled to help because he knows how design enriches all of our lives.
“Many of my friends are artists, designers, architects . . . and this period of isolation has made clear how rich our lives are because we can be productive by making things that are beautiful, useful or both,” said Shaffer. “As a person who spent a significant time of my life as a designer working in New York City, I just felt compelled to turn my tools and machines toward potentially helping that city.”