Hello my name is Mike.
I am a self employed IT Consultant, currently unable to work due to the nationwide lock down and social distancing in place in the UK.
I am married to an A&E doctor and we have two young boys. As you can imagine the issue of inadequate PPE for frontline NHS workers is one that is very close to my heart.
I have been a hobbyist 3D printer owner for a couple of years and am continually amazed at the capabilities of 3D printing or additive manufacturing.
As the corona virus pandemic started to take hold and countries started to struggle to cope with the rate of infection it became clear that there was a severe lack of appropriate PPE to protect health workers on the frontline.
These same countries then struggled to maintain enough healthcare workers to look after the high volumes of infected and seriously ill patients as they too were starting to succumb to the spread of the virus and become ill themselves.
I became aware of the response that the worldwide 3D printing community started to mount in rapidly developing 3D printable PPE that could be quickly and cheaply produced and delivered directly to those who needed it most.
As the UK gradually headed towards lock down my wife was still having to go to work in A&E and came back after every shift having had no additional PPE provided.
This is when I started to print the first face shields and it has grown from there.