Oakham School's Design and Technology department is busy supporting the NHS in their fight against Covid-19 by making face shields for front line staff.

Tim Weston, Head of DT, was busy over the weekend setting up the School's 3D printers to make face shields.

Whilst waiting for new supplies to make the masks, Tim has been creating new CAD drawings to simultaneously reduce the amount of materials needed and to decrease the turnaround time from 3 hours to 1.45 hrs per mask.

Thanks to knowledge sharing with Stamford School, Oakham is also now simultaneously running its Laser Cutters too, which can make 10 in half an hour.

So far, the department has made 100 masks, with many more to come in the days ahead. The masks are going to Oakham Medical Practice, as well as to Peterborough hospital; both of which need more supplies.

Tim is keen to garner the support of any members of the Oakham School community, parents or alumni, who have access to 3D Printers or Laser Cutters and who are able to help in these efforts.

One pupil, who has their own 3D printer, is already involved.

Oakham will help any volunteers with files to make the shields, should they need support.

The School is already speaking to Rutland Plastics to help speed up the mask making process – with the company planning to 3D print some of the parts whilst the School laser cuts the sheets and assembles them.

However, the Department is struggling to get hold of the amount of additional materials they need to make the quantity of masks that are demanded at this time.

If any of the Oakham School community is able to support this resource need, notably 0.8mm Polypropylene sheet and 300 micron PVC clear sheets ideally A4 (or rolled is fine), the DT team will put it to good use to make even more masks.