Salamanca City School District’s STEAM coordinator, Aaron Straus, and retired Dell engineer, David Springer, hold a 3D printed headband for the BC19 masks, to be distributed to area hospitals and health care providers. Submitted photo

SALAMANCA — Students and faculty from the Salamanca City School District are pooling their resources to create 3-D-printed parts for reusable face masks to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

In New York state, the current epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak, doctors, nurses and first responders have reported dire shortages of protective gear.

“It is well known that N95, surgical and other medical masks are in extremely short supply,” noted the Cattaraugus County Health Department in a news release. “The Cattaraugus County Office of Emergency Services is taking donations of handmade masks that we can distribute to healthcare workers and community members in need.”

Amid reports of the shortages, a platoon of 3-D printer-users have been deployed in the Salamanca community to manufacture protective gear from home offices and the recently opened STEAM Wing for health workers.

Retired Dell computer engineer, David Springer, who assists with evening operations of the temporarily vacant Warrior STEAM Wing, said “Each mask costs just over $2 to print with plastic. We have the equipment the knowledge and the technology. I thought, ‘We can do this.”

Springer immediately reached out to Aaron Straus, Salamanca HS Steam Coordinator, who put in a request to access the STEAM lab.

“We asked the district administration (Dr. Beehler and Mr. Breidenstein) to let a small strike team assemble into the school to run the 3-D printers — which is closed through at least April 15, per Gov. Cuomo’s order,” Straus said. “We got the OK on Monday, and by Tuesday, our team was printing our first face mask.”

The school is partnering with local agencies to produce and coordinate the distribution of facemasks, each with a requisite activity, which will be donated to local health care facilities. The first is 3-D printed, N95 facemasks with disposable breathing filters.

“The design is pretty straightforward,” commented Salamanca Science teacher, Cheryl Johnson, who converted a spare 10-by 12-foot area of her home into a remote makerspace.

“Each N95 mask is made of three parts. The largest piece, the face shield, takes about two hours to print; two smaller pieces take about 25 minutes each.”

Johnson and her son, Cole a Salamanca HS junior, downloaded an open-source file to 3-D print an N95 mask from the company, Copper 3D. They ran the file through a program that determined the correct pattern for the school’s 3-D printer.

“The 3-D N95 face masks have an area where particle filters can be replaced,” commented Salamanca student, Cole Johnson. “After sanitization, this allows the masks to be reusable.”

Meanwhile, Boundless Connections, a technology resource and training company headquartered in downtown Olean, put out a pro bono RFP to school districts with 3-D printer capability to produce additional facemasks for area hospitals and health centers.

Salamanca was excited to help the relief effort. “Tell us what we can do,” responded Salamanca Assistant Superintendent, Mark Beehler, “we are all in.”

The company worked with infectious disease experts of the Cattaraugus County COVID response task force to design the mask to specifically protect the whole face for medical professionals. Many new versions do not meet the rigorous Food and Drug Administration’s N95 designation: “when subjected to careful testing, the respirator blocks at least 95 percent of very small (0.3 microns) test particles”

“Unlike N95, which primarily covers the nasal and mouth cavities, our proprietary BC19 face shield sits 2 inches from the face of the user,” said Christina Lopez, Boundless Connections director. “It can work in tandem with other devices and cover the user’s entire face.”

Straus said initial trials took well over three hours to print the sole headband for Boundless Connections, so he and Springer purposefully reached out to district students to remotely assist with fine-tuning the printer setting. “In the case of design solutions, our Salamanca STEAM students are our first responders.”

School officials agree both designs extend the life cycle of a mask that otherwise is a one-time-use item, addressing the industry shortage of masks.

“Five years ago, when we first began our STEAM initiative, we couldn’t have imagined our district would be in a position to use this technology to save lives,” said Superintendent Robert Breidenstein. “Now we are printing 3-D face masks for our front-line health care providers and first responders.”