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Right now, there are at least 90 3-D printers on Auburn\u2019s campus \u2014 that\u2019s the official number on the spreadsheet Mike Ogles put together back in late March. There\u2019s 13 in the maker spaces inside the Brown-Kopel Engineering Student Achievement Center, two in the Auburn University Biomechanical Engineering lab. <\/span><\/p>\n And, of course, there are plenty over in the Gavin Engineering Research Laboratory at the National Center for Additive Manufacturing Excellence (NCAME) where Ogles, director of NASA programs for the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, also serves as associate director for business development. It adds up fast. <\/span><\/p>\n Ogles had been thinking about conducting a census of professors and researchers who had access to 3-D printers for a while. For a school that, thanks to NCAME, has quickly established itself as one of the additive manufacturing research and development capitals of the world, establishing even just a loose network of faculty with additive capabilities, however sophisticated, made sense.<\/span><\/p>\n But he never got around to it. Things happened, like they always do. People get busy, projects get tabled, pandemics shut down the world. \u201cBut, you know, that\u2019s the irony,\u201d Ogles said. \u201cCOVID-19 obviously put plenty of campus initiatives on hold. But it actually helped launch Auburn Makes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It started with a phone call. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cGov. Ivey\u2019s office contacted us, basically wanting to know how many 3-D printers the college had access to in case they needed to martial them into service to compensate for possible personal protective equipment (PPE) shortages,\u201d said Steve Taylor, associate dean for research in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering. \u201cThey were preparing for the worst.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n As soon as he hung up with the governor\u2019s office, he dialed Ogles.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHe said \u2018Mike, remember that project you wanted to work on with the 3-D printers? Well, we need you to do it \u2014 quickly,\u2019\u201d Ogles said. \u201cIn a day and a half I\u2019d found 85.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n And, as fate would have it, some were already being put to emergency use.<\/span><\/p>\n Harnessing Expertise and Resources<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Over the weekend of March 20<\/strong><\/a>, a team of mechanical and electrical engineering faculty conceived and tested the\u00a0RE-InVENT<\/a><\/strong>, a device that could quickly and inexpensively convert CPAP machines into ventilators, which hospital administrators feared could possibly be in short supply in the early days of the pandemic. <\/span><\/p>\n Research engineer Garon Griffiths, who oversees the maker spaces in the new Brown-Kopel Engineering Student Achievement Center, is quick to downplay his role in developing the innovation. Michael Zabala is quick to celebrate it.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe really needed adapters so that we could plug in a pressure gauge for the RE-InVENT,\u201d said Zabala, assistant mechanical engineering professor. \u201cOrdering them would have taken too long, so Garon volunteered to print them for us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The RE-InVENT went on to receive national attention<\/strong><\/a> and was submitted for FDA approval.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cGaron is a good example of the volunteerism that was motivating a lot of our faculty in those uneasy first weeks of the pandemic,\u201d Taylor said.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cTom Burch and Michael Zabala had just begun their incredible work on the RE-InVENT when we got the call from the governor\u2019s office, but several others were also answering their own call-to-arms. Garon was kind of a utility player, using the 3-D printers in Brown-Kopel to facilitate a lot of what was happening. It was very much an all-hands-on-deck situation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Two of those hands belonged to Griffiths\u2019 fellow research engineer Christian Brodbeck, who as advisor to the Auburn chapter of Engineers Without Borders, is no stranger to volunteering his time. <\/span><\/p>\n In late March, Brodbeck and engineering safety manager Emmanuel Winful spearheaded a massive drive<\/a><\/strong> to collect and deliver campus donations of gloves, goggles, lab coats, face masks, hand sanitizer and other PPE to East Alabama Medical Center (EAMC). He also helped coordinate the effort that truly demonstrated the problem-solving potential of harnessing the college\u2019s expertise and resources.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhen we took what we\u2019d collected to EAMC, we realized that they were also really in need of face shields,\u201d Brodbeck said. \u201cWith a new understanding of all of the 3-D printing capabilities that we had, we knew that was something that we could definitely work on. No one wanted to just be sitting there. We wanted to be doing something.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n For the next few weeks, Brown-Kopel became the capital of \u201cDoing Something\u201d at Auburn University.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMike Ogles gave me the spreadsheet, and we asked those on campus with a 3-D printer if they could spare one so we could start printing face shield frames,\u201d Griffiths said. \u201cIf they said \u2018yes,\u2019 we distributed the parts file that we had downloaded.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The campaign cranked into high gear, but occasionally had to get lo-fi.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt was pretty obvious that just a frame wouldn\u2019t do much to stop the spread of the virus,\u201d Brodbeck said. \u201cWe obviously wanted to provide the actual shields as well, but in the spring, the polycarbonate material that they\u2019re made from was in really high demand. Everybody was trying to get it. So we improvised.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n You\u2019re welcome, Office Depot.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYeah, we wound up using overhead projector sheets,\u201d he said. \u201cThey weren\u2019t ideal, but they did the trick in a pinch. We hit pretty much every office supply store in town and purchased thousands of them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n And thousands of rubber bands. \u201cThe back strap of the regular shields was elastic, but elastic was another material that was in short supply,\u201d Brodbeck said. \u201cRubber bands would kind of pinch, but they also worked in a pinch. They at least held it to your face.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n After assembly came distribution. Most shields were slated for EAMC, but word had gotten around \u2014 running low on face shields? Call Auburn.<\/span><\/p>\n Requests poured in from medical and dental clinics across the state and region, and even the Alabama Department of Corrections. Thousands of masks were produced and delivered in boxes that included information about the production process \u2014 and a copy of the Auburn Creed.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe whole idea,\u201d said Eldon Triggs, a lecturer in aerospace engineering who lent his laser-cutting services to the face shield effort, \u201cwas to put Auburn\u2019s principles into practice, especially during this really critical time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n However, by mid-spring, the urgency surrounding PPE supply was beginning to wane. The promise demonstrated in the incredible collaboration, however, was growing more and more apparent.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSteve Taylor wondered what we could do if we kind of got the band back together before it really broke up, and also tried to bring in some others from across campus,\u201d Ogles said. \u201cIt seemed like the natural thing to do. That we could continue to make a difference by pooling all the expertise and resources at Auburn\u2019s disposal just seemed obvious, whether it related to fighting the virus or not.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/files\/2020\/12\/AU-Makes_2.jpg\")
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