Contributed by Abigail Furey

With school buildings now confirmed closed through the 2019-20 school year, there are a lot of valuable resources resting inside.  The current need for personal protective equipment for front line workers is on many people’s minds and leaves us wondering how we can help while staying at home.  For Holliston educators Dan MacLeod, Director of Technology & Digital Learning, and Michelle Hastings, Engineering teacher at Miller Elementary School,  the answer was to put the district’s 3D printers to use! 

Dawn Neborsky, Holliston School Committee member, had heard about Hopkinton Public Schools printing face shields and asked if it was something Holliston Schools could do to help.  Michelle was in touch with Doug Scott, Engineering/Robotics teacher at Hopkinton High School.  They began using a 3D printing design called the Looney Model (for Cape Cod resident Mike Looney) that uses overhead transparency sheets and a 3-hole punch to attach shields to 3D printed visors. 

Each visor takes about one hour and forty-five minutes to print.  At Michelle’s house, she has recruited her family members to keep the printers running constantly.  Once printed, they attach non-latex rubber bands to the visor and package them up along with the overhead transparencies that have been 3-hole punched so healthcare workers can easily attach and change them as needed. 

The Holliston Public Schools has generously donated all of the materials currently being used to create the shields: several rolls of printing filament along with boxes of overhead transparency sheets that have been in storage because teachers no longer use these!

At this point, the Holliston Shield Team has made over 500 shields with over 1,600 transparency sheets so the shields can be reused by healthcare providers.  The face shields have gone to a variety of different places including both the Holliston Fire and Police Departments, along with Milford Regional, MetroWest Medical, and Beth Israel Hospitals. Several have also been given to local nursing homes including the Timothy Daniels House in Holliston. The majority of their shields have gone to Boston HealthCare for the Homeless. A Holliston resident, Patty Baribeau, is a nurse at Boston HealthCare for the Homeless, where they continue to need shields. The team will keep printing them as long as the need continues.

If anyone has a 3D printer and wants to get involved, please reach out to Michelle Hastings.  She would be happy to share the files and get you connected to “The Shield Team.” In just the last four weeks, there are over 190 people from 27 different states who have created over 15,000 shields along with 20,500 sheets. #theshieldteam2020