Due to the pandemic caused by the Corona Virus, schools in Turkey entered the holiday break on March 16, 2020, and a week later the whole country passed to the distance learning process including universities. In our country, the virus cases started to be seen long after the cases were seen in some European countries. I was closely following what many of my Scientix Ambassadors network was doing and experiencing through this process in their countries. Based on the good examples they made or shared to prevent the spread of the virus in this process I decided to start my own fighting against the pandemic process.

First, I formed a volunteer team of the teachers working in our school. I tried to bring different branches together while selecting volunteer teachers. The team included Science, Technology and Design, Information Technologies, English Language, and Math teachers. Second, we decided which target group we must appeal to and what we could do to help this hard process.

As a result of our evaluations, in order to serve the needs of health and safety employees we agreed to focus on:

• Production of face shields to prevent the virus
• Production of special apparatus for the conversion of underwater masks into intensive care masks
• And the production of surgical mask holders in order to prevent injuries in the ears.

Our teacher team started product design by putting the 3D printer in our school to the leading role. We started the production process after the steps of showing the designs we created and produced to the doctors working in the pandemic hospitals and they tested these products. The function, design, production of the products included a system that included the STEM disciplines.

Which disciplines did we use in the production of face shield visors?

1. Design

1. Purposefulness (Antivirus feature)
2. Usefulness
   • Easy to take off and install since it is used for long periods of time.
   • It does not disturb in long hours.
   • Easily disinfected for reuse.
   • Easy-to-supply of apparatus.
3. Size
   • Prevents contamination through breathing, saliva, and similar ways.
   • Should be large enough to protect the face
4. Solidworks, Paint 3D (Design)
   • Easy to install
   • Utilization of buttons in appropriate size to fill hole punch holes
   • Using A4 size transparencies as protective material and mounting the transparencies to the main body by punching them with punchers.
   • Placing the button spacing according to the range of stationery punch
5. Parts
   • Main part
   • Transparent Skin Cover Pvc 160 Micron
   • 2cm rubber for head
6. Materials to be Used for Production
   • 3d printer
   • Stationery hole punch
   • Scissors
   • Ruler
7. For cheaper production
   • Material selection for 3D (ABS, PLA, FLEX, PETG, etc.)
   • Selection of the rate of internal occupancy so that flexibility and durability are not lost (0-100%)
   • Transparent Binding Cover Pvc (160 Micron, A3)
   • Affordable elastic band selection (Perforated elastic band is ideal, but it is two Turkish liras per meter), instead of that using a normal elastic band and opening the hole ourselves is much cheaper. The price of this is 45 cents of Turkish liras.

Process of Production and Distribution of Products

Our volunteer teacher team designed a prototype and finalized this design by discussing it with the doctors (see figures below).

We started production with a 3D printer in our school. Since curfews started on these dates, I decided to make production at my home. When I produced at home, I could use the printer at night. Thus, we benefited from the printer 24 hours a day, see pictures below.

We came together with our teacher team at school to assemble the products we took from a 3D printer to a certain number. (Figure 5 and Figure 6)

Our production process continued for two months. In the process, we produced 1500 face shields, 100 conversion apparatus and 800 surgical mask holders. We delivered our products to the following institutions free of charge:

1. Muğla University Training and Research Hospital
2. Köyceğiz State Hospital
3. Datça State Hospital
4. Ortaca State Hospital
5. Dalaman State Hospital
6. Yatağan State Hospital
7. Muğla Provincial Police Department
8. Menteşe District Police Department
9. Ortaca District Police Department
10. Muğla Provincial Gendarmerie Command
11. Turkish Red Crescent/ Menteşe

Some pictures taken during the delivery are:

Some Written Press News:

1. Habertürk Newspaper(https://www.haberturk.com/mugla-haberleri/77028940-mugla-bilsemden-saglik-ve-guvenlikciler-icin-koruyucu-siperlik)
2. Haberler.com (https://www.haberler.com/bilsem-den-emniyete-koruyucu-siperlik-destegi-13133358-haberi/)
3. Mynet (https://www.mynet.com/mugla-bilsemden-saglik-ve-guvenlikciler-icin-koruyucu-siperlik-180105011379)
4. Sondakika.com (https://www.sondakika.com/haber/haber-mugla-saglik-calisanlari-icin-siperlik-maske-13099186/)

Author: Bekir Cevizci, Scientix Ambassador from Turkey

Bekir Cevizci has been teaching mathematics to high school students for 18 years. In 2015, he was selected as the “Changemakers Teacher of the Year” in Turkey. Cevizci, who also writes in many newspapers and magazines, has 2 books titled “Koksu” and “Neynâme Mevlânâ” published in the field of literature.

Tags: 3D printing, Community Story, STEM and society, teamwork, Turkey