Tyndall PhD researcher Clara Skuse part of winning team at 2021 Making a Difference Awards
19 May 2021
The PPE Printing Project for Local NHS won in the 'Outstanding professional services for social responsibility' category
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The PPE Printing Project team, led by Professor Brian Derby, printed and assembled visors for NHS staff and a partner project in Uganda to address critical demand for personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Clara Skuse and her colleagues, Vicente Orts Mercadillo and Scott Dean, made over a hundred PPE visors using at-home 3D printers. They also collected the ends of University filament spools that are usually discarded (the quantity of material is not enough to safely leave the 3D printers un-attended). Clara and Vicente used the material in the home 3D-printers where they could monitor the printed visors and ultimately reduce plastic waste. They then cycled into University with bags of visors at a time to drop them off with the PPE team, who assembled them and sent them to local NHS hospitals during the first lockdown.