Face shields for our frontliners

Comfort and care: UTAR’s Kai Wen (left) handing over the face shields to an Assunta Hospital representative.

WEIGHING only 9g, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman’s (UTAR) 3D-printed face shields were designed with the users’ comfort in mind.

Made only from reusable materials at the varsity’s Sungai Long Campus, ‘FastnLite’ was developed by the students themselves.

The face shields can be worn comfortably for long hours as it does not press on the wearer’s forehead.

Led by Kevin Lim Kai Wen, the group members Lim Tyng Xian, Sin Chia Ling and Ooi Hsin Yein, created the face shields with help from a printing company and volunteers.

Realising that there was an urgent need for personal protection equipment (PPE), the students from the Faculty of Engineering and Science took it upon themselves to come up with the environmentally friendly face shields for frontliners of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Kon10 Innovation – an enterprise registered under UTAR’s Unovate Centre – was set up and produced 1,500 face shields in just four days.

Some 2,000 face shields have been sent to Assunta Hospital and Ampang Hospital since, with another 7,000 to be delivered to hospitals soon.

Over at Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT), a team of 20 student volunteers have also produced and donated over 3,000 face shields to the Terengganu State Health Department since they started the project dubbed “Face Shield Heroes” on March 23.

The project is led by UMT Marine Engineering and Informatics Faculty lecturer Dr Noor Zaitun Yahaya, who is also the Clean Air Forum Society of Malaysia (MyCas) president and NGO Frontliner Support Team’s Covid-19 programme director.

Noor Zaitun said the team plans to produce another 8,000 face shields to be distributed to the Nur Zahirah Kuala Terengganu Hospital as well as quarantine areas across the state.

She said all the face shields produced are according to the Occupational Safety and Health (Classification, Labelling and Safety Data Sheet of Hazardous Chemicals) Regulations 2013.

“Material selection, production location and production itself including the packaging, labelling and transporting, are done in compliance with the standards set by the Department of Occupational Health Malaysia (DOSH), ” she said.

She added that the student volunteers also adhere strictly to the hygiene standards set by DOSH when the making the face shields.

UMT vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Nor Aieni Mokhtar said the institution was proud that it managed to help the frontliners who are the “real heroes”.

“Although the donation was a small gesture, it was a meaningful contribution. It’s our way of helping to curb the spread of Covid-19, ” she said.

The project was a collaboration between UMT, its Student Representative Council, Residential College Representative Committee, MyCas, and 10 other NGOs.

Environmental Technology Masters student Nirwani Dewi Maniandi, who is in charge of quality control of the face shields since it began, said it felt good to be contributing to society.

She said she was able to apply the knowledge learnt in her Occupational Health Safety course to good use.

She even gained new knowledge from the standard operating procedures involved in supplying personal protective equipment to health facilities.

Working on the project meant her time was spent productively despite the movement control order.

Not forgetting the contribution of their janitorial and landscaping staff, UMT presented 33 “Ramadhan happy boxes” filled with daily necessities for its cleaning crew as a token of appreciation for their services.