STEM helps with COVID-19 battle

LIHU‘E — School is closed due to concerns surrounding COVID-19, but the battery of 3D laser printers whirred with life Thursday at the Kaua‘i High School technology building.

“It’s a good thing I live close by,” said Elena Kealoha, one of the Kaua‘i High School teachers in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics program at the school. “Ms. Marlene Leary OK’d me to do this because it’s not like I’m spending a lot of time here. I start the printers, leave for about three hours, come back to unload and reset the printers.”

Working in partnership with Rich O’Reilly and Kaua‘i Makerspace, Kealoha is working on a project to create sorely-needed face-mask shields for Hawai‘i Pacific Health, Wilcox Health and Wilcox Medical Center being a part of that system.

“We were printing shields from a template provided by the laser printer manufacturers,” Kealoha said. “But Rich — he teaches one of the classes in the Kaua‘i High School STEM program — met a guy from Hawai‘i Pacific Health who told him about the need for the shields.”

O’Reilly worked on the design for the shield after getting specifications of the required component of personal protective equipment for health-care workers on the frontlines of the COVID-19 battle.

“He created the design using CAD (computer assisted design) program, the same program he teaches to the students in the Design Tech 2 class,” Kealoha said. “These shields are to the specifications provided by Hawai‘i Pacific Health and, as such, the ‘HPH’ is embossed onto the shield frame.”

The file is loaded onto the battery of nine laser printers, set, and the printers do the rest. Kealoha returns three hours after hitting the “print” button, clears the completed components, and resets the printers in the battery that includes more than half of the printers being student-built.

“Leah Aiwohi — she was doing the STEM education before me — got some of these printers,” Kealoha said. “If they break, or don’t work, we need to figure out what is wrong. The others were built by the students. If they break, the students can fix them because they know what to do — they built them.”

The completed components form the base and shield holder for the PPE being needed by HPH professionals.

“We’re still waiting on the delivery of the plastic that will form the shield that can be disposed of after being used,” Kealoha said. “This is a true partnership between us, Kaua‘i Makerspace, and even the grants and funding that make this possible. Because of the accuracy needed in meeting the specifications, we’ll be using the laser cutters instead of scissors because the cutters are more accurate.”

Kealoha said she became involved with STEM education after meeting O’Reilly a few years back at a conference both attended.

“They were doing 3D printing there,” she said. “I made niele, and met O’Reilly. We’ve stayed in touch, and he even teaches one of the STEM classes. Kaua‘i Makerspace even has a space at Kaua‘i Community College.”

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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.