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Teacher Makes Face Shields for the District

Davenport School District

Face shields are available for teachers and staff of the Davenport schools thanks to a teacher at West High School.

Greg Smith teaches Industrial Technology and says it all started when the superintendent asked him to make a few face shields for staff because of the pandemic. With a 3-D printer he initially made 100, but needed to make more much faster, so he switched to a laser cutter.

"We could print approximately five every four hours and so that would take a really long time to do 2,000 of them, and so we had to come up with an idea to produce them a different way."

Using the laser cutter, it took just 3 1/2 minutes to produce each one. Materials include plastic, plywood, super glue, elastic straps, and transparencies from overhead projectors.

"You can buy various types of face shields and you can get some fairly cheap and you can get some that are more durable. And this is kind of a durable frame replace-able shield that would be a fraction of the cost of what you'd have to pay for something you would buy like at Lowe's or Menards or something like that."

Smith says commercial face shields cost about 11 dollars each, while his laser cut shields cost about two dollars apiece, and those made with the 3-D printer are about seven dollars each.

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois.