April 10, 2020

Bob Griggs, president of Southeast Technical Institute, had a challenge for his school as COVID-19 forced in-person learning to stop and virtual learning to start.

“He said, ‘Is there anything we can do?’ So my students and I went through and came up with some models,” professor Johnnie Schroeder said.

Schroeder’s rapid-prototyping class quickly came up with a face shield and frame for it, which health care workers helping COVID-19 patients have to wear.

“We designed the brackets so they hold the shield away from your face,” Schroeder said.

With the material on hand, they used 3D printing to produce about 20 face shields, which were delivered to Avera Health.

“I really want to produce a bunch of them, and I probably have 40 frames right now, but I’m waiting on material,” Schroeder said. “We’re working on the material with Raven Industries, and we have some back-ordered. So then we can start to produce face shields. Those are critical with COVID because of what’s in the air.”

Then the 3D printing effort really took off. Schroeder’s family friend, former “Survivor” contestant Mitchell Olson, reached out after a neighbor who works at Avera asked him to use a home 3D printer to create five mask straps. The straps are used to ease strain on health care workers’ ears when wearing face masks for prolonged periods.

“Once I reached him, he said that he would attempt to gain access to his classroom printers so that we could accommodate these requests,” Olson said.

The requests started growing — to the point where Thursday there were at least 10,000 requests for straps.

Schroeder sent his class the file so the students can pick up material at a pre-determined location and then print straps from home.

“For the moment, I have plenty of material on hand,” he said. “You can probably print 300 or 400 out of a spool of material. The biggest problem (going forward) will be getting the material that we actually need. It didn’t use to be hard to get, but I ordered 25 spools, and they’re all on back order. Before this all blew up, I ordered four boxes, so I probably have 50 or 60 spools on hand.”

Olson also has helped coordinate 3D printers and has connected with POET’s Seeds of Change nonprofit, which has agreed to cover the cost of materials, packaging and postage going forward.

“Each day, I keep thinking that the offers will stop, but they keep growing,” Olson said. “We’re offering them to literally anybody who asks, free of charge and free shipping.”

Olson anticipates sending them to all the Sioux Falls hospitals responding to COVID-19, LifeScape, nursing homes and first responders.

For POET, it became a way for Seeds of Change – which currently can’t travel to do mission work overseas – to give back closer to home.

“Seeds of Change is happy to support the creation and distribution of face mask guard strips to our front-line workers,” it said in a statement. “While we are disappointed our planned Mission Hope trip has been canceled due to COVID-19, we’re happy that the funding for the trip can be reallocated to make an impact during this critical time.”

The combined effort is printing about 400 straps daily, Olson said.

“My best guess? This will peak and slow and then our lives go back to doing nothing all day!” he said. “But quite honestly, there is no desire to branch out or continue beyond this big campaign. We’re happy to help.”