WCDSB teams up with Inksmith
Posted May 19, 2020 10:00:00 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Waterloo Catholic District School Board has teamed up with their educational partner, Inksmith, in providing 3D printing personal protective equipment (PPE) pieces for the company's face shields.
Inksmith had been partners with the school board for over four years, but when the company retooled and began manufacturing PPE, the board leaped at the opportunity to help.
Michael Leonard is the WCDSB Experiential Learning and Innovation Lead who led the initiative. He and along with 75 staff volunteers, ranging from library techs to principals and teachers, collected the 3D printers from their schools and started printing PPE parts at home.
According to Leonard, the board has printed over 3,000 pieces for Inksmith; from the bottoms of their face shields to the headbands. They call it the “Community Shield” which is similar to the ministry approved “Canadian shield” supplied by Inksmith. They also began to 3D print ear savers for frontline care workers to loop their masks over to prevent chafing.
“They were able to move very quickly. They're doing a lot of the other work, like we're providing the pieces, but they have the laser cutters to print the plastic mask pieces, they had staffing to do the assembly piece, so it was an easy partnership because they had the logistics down,” Leonard said about their partnership with Inksmith.
The face shields will be given to frontline workers or companies and groups who are unable to afford them.
Leonard says there are even plans to bring it full circle and incorporate it into a lesson plan.
“They even started creating lesson plans and activites for learning at home about this whole process of design thinking, and how they've been able to pivot it, like (from) an educational based company to a medical based company.”
