In exceptional times such as these there is an overwhelming desire to help out in some way, however small. When there is a problem you can solve and you have the equipment and experience then it becomes compelling. Along with the School of Engineering, Design Informatics put our 3D printers and lasers to work producing thousands of face shields for NHS and care workers.

Batch production differs to our usual way of working and speed of production becomes crucial. So hacks, improvisations and creativity were deployed to iterate designs to reduce runtimes and minimise post-processing. We had Mark Kobine, Design Informatics Workshop Technician, at the lead to make this all a success.

Happily we are not alone and the country has a vibrant maker community producing designs at home. There is a future opportunity here for distributed, local manufacture of Creative Commons designs to supply nearby communities should we find ourselves in times like these again.