By Natalie Anderson
Staff Reporter
Lee County native Tristan Cairns has teamed up with Office Depot and generous community members to create 3D-printed face shields within his home for local hospital workers. With the original plan of creating the face shields for his friends, brother and sister, Matthew and Katie Walton both registered nurses at EAMC, Cairns realized he could create face shields for the entire hospital.
Thanks to overseas printing designers who displayed their creations for the public, Cairns became inspired to create the shields for hospital workers in Lee County.
After printing out a prototype and getting the approval of EAMC medical workers, the production was started. Although Cairns has one 3D printer at home, and printing takes at least 1 hour per mask, last Friday, Cairns was able to drop off roughly 35 masks to EAMC for donation.
The informational post, which was shared on Cairns’s Facebook page, received incredible feedback within the first day and soon enough, donations started coming in. While Cairns has one 3D printer at home at the moment, there have been three generous donations of 3D printers which will increase the production rate once received. He predicts printing will be increased to 30 to 40 masks per day and 400 to 500 per week. Other generous donations have included rubber bands, filament and clear gloss binder sheets according to his post.
“Office Depot of Tiger Town has been great… they started this, I went to them and they instantly got on board and started donating supplies, they also have been working with the online customers, they have just been wonderful,” Cairns said.
For more information and how to donate, visit Tristan’s Facebook post for direct links at https://www.facebook.com/tristan.cairns/posts/10158217520829711.