A few days ago, North Central Texas Community Health Care Center in the U.S. received a special donation — 70 face shields and 300 ear guards. All the equipment was made by local high school students using 3-D printing technology.

“The project started in the middle of March after spring holiday,” Fang Wang, coach of the high school robotics team Technicbots, told Xinhua during a recent telephone interview.

It was Technicbots that initiated the 3-D printing personal protective equipment (PPE) for local health workers. Founded in 2009 in Plano, a city in the state of Texas, the team has taken part in many contests organized by For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), an international youth organization.

Noticing PPE shortages for frontline medical workers since the outbreak of COVID-19, many American Chinese groups in Texas have organized various donations and also encouraged the 10 American Chinese students with Technicbots to make their own contributions.

“We noticed that companies from the United States and Czech Republic have released models of 3-D printing PPE and we used them as our original models,” Wang said, explaining that 3-D printing is the technology the team has been using in the past years.

The team focused on two kinds of PPE products: the face shield that can protect health workers when treating patients, and the ear guard that reduces the pain on ears when wearing masks for a long time.

After finishing a few samples, the team contacted clinics in need for testing and got the feedback before modifying the models. “It took a few weeks to finalize the models after doctors and nurses were absolutely satisfied with the products,” said Wang.

With an aim to apply their robotic knowledge and skills to work, Technicbots has done many volunteer work such as summer camps to introduce robotics to more students. However, using the skills to actually help the community was new to the teenagers.

“When hosting camps we would have months to prepare the curriculum and we would only have to meet once a week to get things done. But since the situation is different, we really had to work together to meet every day and things are really more urgent than some of the other volunteer work,” team member Austin Liu told Xinhua.

Building a production line was not an easy task, especially at this time. Unable to meet in person, students and their coach have virtual meetings every afternoon, reporting progress and assigning new tasks. Suddenly, their homes are transformed into factories, warehouses and meeting rooms.

Working under time pressure and communicating with different groups made the process quite stressful at first, but the students quickly adjusted themselves and overcome the difficulties.

The 10 team members were divided into nine groups. From making and assembling to sanitizing and packaging, from request processing to material researching, the whole production line was run by students themselves supervised by their coach and parents.

So far, the team has delivered nearly 600 face shields and around 1,300 ear guards to 20 different hospitals and clinics, receiving positive responses from medical workers.

Receiving more and more orders, the team is now working with four other robotic teams and a professor from the University of Texas. “To sustain these efforts, we recently started a fundraising and so far we have raised US$4,415,” team member Melody Hu said. (Xinhua)