One of the most pressing issues in the ongoing coronavirus crisis is the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) for front-line medical personnel. As a result, solutions have come from unusual places, like Whitgift School.

Whitgift is a prestigious independent school in South Croydon, London, with impressive facilities that is currently closed to the majority of students and operates a remote learning program. However, its Design, Technology, and Engineering department is now using those facilities in a completely different way: the production of clinical visors.

Thomas Wendes, a Whitgift design, technology, and engineering teacher, started the project to create a PPE-standard visor in response to a parent's request.

Wendes tells Verdict, "A parent who works for the NHS was contacted by the Design, Technology, and Engineering department explaining they had seen that some 3D printing market open-source PPE was being developed online and wondered whether we could use our facilities to produce some."

I immediately began investigating our available options because I was eager to assist. We are fortunate to have excellent equipment at Whitgift, and it felt very humbling to be able to assist frontline employees in any way.

Using Whitgift School facilities to produce PPE that protects against the coronavirus for hospitals The visors that Whitgift produces are primarily being delivered to Croydon University Hospital, where their procurement department has approved them as PPE.

According to Wendes, "the main challenges were developing a visor that could be sterilised, reused, and produced efficiently using materials and manufacturing techniques from schools."

The visor itself has not been subjected to medical testing to demonstrate compliance with standards. However, due to the fact that this kind of personal protective equipment (PPE) has been used in such a greater quantity during the current crisis, the hospital valued any barrier or additional protection.

Wendes initially produced two prototypes, one made using the school's laser cutting machines and the other using the school's 3D printing facilities. PPE is being used for both.

According to Wendes, "Mr. Andy Marlow, Director of Partnership and Community at Whitgift, got in touch with Croydon University Hospital to explain how we were producing PPE for other healthcare workers and to see if they would be interested in visors."

“We waited for a verdict after handing over a 3D-printed visor and an internal laser-cut version to the procurement officer. A group of medical professionals decided they needed as many of our laser-cut visors as we could make.

As the coronavirus rapidly depletes the stock of visors that are currently available and more are on the way, healthcare professionals are now utilizing visors that were made at Whitgift using both 3D printing and laser cutting techniques to treat patients in a variety of settings.

"We have been informed that they are right now being utilized in the Emergency clinic maternity ward as the ongoing stock is being focused on for use on Coronavirus wards," makes sense of Wendes.

We have also received numerous requests from other healthcare organizations in the area. At the moment, a single visor has been provided to each of Croydon's 54 general practices for their minor operations rooms. We sent 20 visors to Moorfields Clinic to permit them to go on with crisis medical procedures there.

"The school has been reached by a large number of care homes, a mental clinic and a parent who works in Kingston Emergency clinic's ITU has addressed us to request a somewhat upgraded visor to be utilized in to be utilized by medical caretakers and specialists medicinally supporting Coronavirus affirmed patients. That is presently at model stage. It's wonderful to see schools all over the country using skills to help NHS employees.
Laser cutting versus 3D printing: How Whitgift produces visors Whitgift currently produces visors at a rate of approximately 300 per day through the utilization of both laser cutting and 3D printing.

It prints stacks of visor headbands using an open-source file created by PRUSA, which can be downloaded here. A growing number of people are using it to make visors for local hospitals and healthcare organizations with their own 3D printers.

However, due to its lengthy manufacturing process, Wendes rates it as the "least preferable" of the two.

It works well as a visor, but it takes a very long time to make one with FDM printers. A stack of four visors can be made in eight and a half hours using our 3D printers. That's 16 visors per day, far below the current demand, with four operating 3D printers, he claims.

“The visor that I prefer most is one that I designed and cut with a laser cutter. I can make 21 headbands in 23 minutes from a piece of 3mm acrylic for this visor.

Wendes plans to soon make laser cutting files available for others to use, and the initial development of the laser cut visor was done to make the most of Whitgift's resources. Additionally, the school is seeking support from manufacturers to see if they can donate or provide materials at cost in order to meet demand for the raw materials.

There are three parts to the visor. The laser-cut headband made of 3 millimeters of acrylic, two x 125 millimeter elastic bands, and a PET visor made of a gloss laminator pouch that has been through the laminator machine without anything inside,” he says.

“With 650 constructed visors at this time, we have had to purchase additional rubber bands and laminator pouches. Additionally, we are talking to our plastic suppliers about getting more acrylic in stock so that we can at least maintain our current output levels.
Benefits for education Despite the fact that the project has been developed without students' participation thus far due to the UK government's decision to close schools, Wendes anticipates that the project will benefit education in the future.

He states, "The speed at which this process happened meant that I moved forward with this myself, and although it would have been wonderful to involve them in the production, they are all required to be off site so that was not possible."

“To maintain a safe but effective working environment, I have used a small team of two staff volunteers to create a socially separated production line.

"The product itself can be used as a very good example of Iterative and User-Centered Design, which are embedded in the curriculum for the GCSE and A level," "in future DTE lessons."