A Trinity engineer has manufactured well over 1,000 pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) using a 3D printer in his home, in order to help in Ireland’s coronavirus fight.
Mick Reilly, the chief technical officer in Trinity’s School of Engineering, has brought six 3D printers from Trinity – where access is restricted – to his home in Co Kildare.
There, he has produced more than 1,000 face shield frames and 300 full-face shields that have been donated to frontline staff working in the country’s hospitals.
Aided by sons Ollie and George, Reilly is playing a key role in a national effort amid fears of a shortage of the equipment, which is vital for those treating coronavirus patients.
The equipment is being collected by regional volunteers and delivered to an assembly site in Cork, where members of the defence forces are sanitising, assembling and packing the completed PPE face shields.
In a press statement, he said: “Having recently set up a very successful Makerspace and 3D printing facility in the Department of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering for our undergraduate students it would have been a shame not to utilise our resources for this initiative.”
The face shields are currently being used in hospitals, nursing homes, drug and alcohol centres and many other care facilities.
Trinity says that the production of the shields will continue “as long as there is a demand for them”. More 3D printers will be pressed into service in the coming weeks to cope with demand.
Trinity has donated large amounts of medical equipment to the country’s hospitals since the outset of the coronavirus pandemic. Last month, several of College’s science departments donated personal protective equipment such as masks, goggles and gloves to St James’s and Tallaght hospitals.
Speaking to The University Times about the donations, Prof Tomás Ryan, an associate professor in Trinity’s Institute of Neurosciences, said: “We’re just doing what we can.”
“We put a call around Trinity to all the biology departments, also engineering, geography, geology”, Ryan said. “We got a response much better than expected.”
The equipment donated includes gowns, masks, visors, goggles, and gloves for healthcare workers. The majority of items were sent to St James’s Hospital, with some equipment sent to Tallaght University Hospital. Both are teaching hospitals affiliated with Trinity.
“We’ll give them everything we have”, Ryan said. “Everyone in academia just has so much good will – we just want to give everything we have to help.”
