STAFF at the University of Newcastle have switched focus to rapidly design, develop and manufacture face shields to protect the region's front line health care workers in the fight against COVID-19.
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Amid a growing global shortage of medical face masks and other personal protective equipment, the university's physics, design and engineering departments joined forces to offer a swift solution to a critical problem.
"You could see that there was this enormous problem in terms of our health care workers on the frontline just not having the right equipment," the university's Professor Paul Dastoor said.
"As the health workers have said themselves, it's like them being sent into a war without rifles or bullets.
"That was becoming apparent two weeks ago. Then there was increasing chatter at the university about our local hospital needing protective gear. And we thought, we are actually in a position to help."
On Monday last week, they were in the lab at 6am, working on prototypes.
By 8am, they had their first prototype.
A week later, they delivered 200 masks to John Hunter Hospital.
Another 100 were sent to Tamworth.
"We should have well over 1000 ready by the end of today. And we have also now developed machinery to automate the process. So it will be even faster," he said.
"Through some health contacts, we sent materials up to the hospital and got them into the hands of the doctors who said, 'We'd like this longer, we'd like this shorter, we need this rounder, it's too tight, it's too thin', then we rapidly adjusted the design and within a week we had a product being used in the hospital."
The university has since had almost 4000 orders for face shields, mostly from Hunter hospitals.
"The masks are already being used in ICU at the John Hunter," he said.
"And as far as we can tell, all the feedback we have received is that they are delighted with them and that they'd like more."
Professor Dastoor said his team was usually trying to "save the planet" printing solar panels.
"We already are people determined to make things better, to make a difference," he said. "It just turns out that the same materials we print on - the plastic sheets we use to make our solar cells - are ideal for making face shields.
"So it wasn't much of an ask to say to the guys, 'Let's re-tool, let's use what we know and make these shields'.
"We are not 3D printing. What we've done is used our expertise to work out how to cut shapes out of this plastic - and we use a number of companies around town to help us do that - one on the Central Coast, Guru Labels, uses a laser to cut the shape out in bulk."
Volunteers from different departments were helping with the assembly of the masks, facilitated by the Australian National Fabrication Facility team based at the university.
"Everyone is mucking in. It's all hands to the pump," he said.
"The beauty of this kind of effort is, now we have a model we know addresses the needs of those on the ground, we've been able to collaborate to make the production process even faster. There's truly a community rallying together to contribute what they can in this crisis.
"I think it is good for the community to see, in these dark times, that actually there are things going on to make it better, and people are coming together to work to beat this bloody thing."
Teams at the university were also working on prototypes for ventilators and respirators.
"We see our role as a stop gap - holding on until either another manufacturer comes in or someone else takes over, but as long as we are needed to help, we will," he said.
"We will stand there in the breach and make the rifles and the bullets the guys on the frontline need."
Acting Pro Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Health and Medicine, Professor Liz Sullivan, said a key working group from a range of disciplines had shown "exceptional initiative" in aiding these shortages.
"Providing our medical and health workers with the resources they need to do their jobs safely is of paramount importance," she said.
Professor Brett Ninness, Pro Vice-Chancellor of engineering, said the activities underway across the university in response to coronavirus were "incredible."
"As scientists and engineers, our responsibility is to try and solve some of the world's greatest challenges, and right now, COVID-19 is it," he said.
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