Rider Professor, Alum Use 3D Printers To Help Fight Coronavirus
LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ — Jacob Ezzo bought a 3D printer in January on a whim. He intended to use it as a hobby, but he’s using to help save lives instead.
Shortly after Gov. Phil Murphy issued his stay-at-home order to help prevent the spread of new coronavirus, Ezzo began using his 3D printer to make face shields for local members of the medical community.
At the same time, Rider University Associate Professor Dr. John Bochanski began using his 3D printer to make ventilator splitters, which allow two patients to be connected to the same ventilator in case of a shortage.
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Neither of these men is a 3D printing expert; they said they were just trying to do their part to give back during the worldwide public health emergency.
"There's hundreds of people all over the country who are pitching in to do what they can to help the medical community," Bochanski, a physics professor, said. "I'm just one step on the ladder, but I wanted to do what I could to help."
Ezzo, the choral director for South Orange Middle School and a 2014 Rider alum, made five face shields on his first day. To date, he has created nearly 400 face shields and counting, the university said in a release on Thursday.
He has also created a Facebook group, SOMA NJ 3D Printers Alliance, has created a network of nearly 60 people devoted to the assembly line of printing and delivering the face shields to local hospitals in north Jersey.
Members come from all walks of life, including Broadway performers, real estate CEOs, LEGO employees and even a sixth grader from Ezzo's school.
The group has crowdsourced a number of material donations, including appealing to Amazon for certain items and a second 3D printer for Ezzo. His printers have been running 24/7 since March 22. He hopes to expand drop-offs to central and south Jersey as well.
"I'm used to organizing groups of people as a choral director," Ezzo said. "To not have that day in and day out has left me feeling a little helpless. There's not much a layperson can do for this virus except sit home, but creating these face shields looked like an easy way for me to play my part and help alleviate some of the difficulties the medical community is facing."
Ezzo and his team have delivered about 150 face shields to local health care facilities and recently got an order from the local fire and EMS departments, which will require an additional 250 units. He plans to continue printing as many as he can and continue to crowdsource materials.
Both Bochanski and Ezzo began their 3D printing projects through passing conversations in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in New Jersey.
Bochanski was casually talking with a friend who works at Google who mentioned he found a website that provided access to 3D printer plans for creating ventilator splitters, according to the university.
After exploring the site and speaking with his colleagues at Rider, he brought one of the University's 3D printers home with some supplies and started producing them.
"Dr. Jonathan Yavelow (professor of biology) has established a relationship with Capital Health so when I got this idea, I was able to reach out to their CEO directly," Bochanski said. "Their supply chain director said they could use eight of them. These splitters would only be used in a worst-case scenario if they had a shortage, but as we're seeing in New York, it may be a possibility."
They both said they end goal is when the pandemic ends.
"This project is really just an example of how we can use the resources we have at Rider to give back to our communities," Bochanski said.
See related: NJ Coronavirus Updates: Here's What You Need To Know
This article originally appeared on the Lawrenceville Patch