During the pandemic, we closed schools in large part to keep kids safe. We closed the whole city to keep people home and away from contamination. Yet, somehow, now that students were not in school, students were all of a sudden working 40 hours a week, during the middle of the school day. Not only are students now not learning, but they are also in high risk situations second only to hospitals and community homes. We are not yet in the situation like our neighbors where health care workers were relying on 3D printed masks. Our healthcare workers seemed to have the proper PPE. However, our students who were working in the service industry were very vulnerable, the debate on masks was still evolving.

One particular student who was doing well in class, but was not particularly enthusiastic in the normal F2F class, was flourishing in this pandemic. He was attending on line classes and also learned to design in 3D. He took the ubiquitous 3D printed face shield design and revamped it so that it was more flexible, faster to print, more cost effective and material efficient.

Because it was more flexible, when student would hit their new face shields on the car trunks, the shield would not fall off, but rather just bend.