The Effort.

As many of you know from the last post we have been printing and manufacturing as much PPE for front line medical workers as possible these last few weeks. The process has been full of both challenges and rewarding successes.

Production Capacity.

This effort is continuing and scaling up where possible. We have switched from printing the ear relief straps for masks to cutting them out on the laser cutter from 4×8 sheets of PETG. This has taken us from 7 straps per printer per 1.5 hours to 20 straps every 6.5 minutes. This means that all of our printers are now free to print exclusively face shields. Additionally, we have received a very generous loan of 5 of Rivermont Collegiate’s 3D printers to increase the capacity of our face shield production. We are keeping a close eye on our metrics and will hopefully have some more detailed numbers getting posted in the upcoming weeks.

Community Support.

The Co-Lab has received so many great donations over the last few weeks. First of all we would like to thank everyone at the lab that has worked to make this possible. All of our members are volunteers and the time and effort put in by our membership over the last few weeks have been absolutely astonishing. Second I would like to thank the community businesses that have helped support our efforts including RSM, Modern Woodman, Rivermont Collegiate, and Van Meter. Third I would like to thank everyone who has been spreading the word about the Co-Lab and those who have donated personally. KWQC ran an amazing story on the efforts that are underway at the lab and the community reaction has been fantastic! The lab is humbled by this community and we are happy we could give back!