Three young students from Bois-de-Boulogne College, motivated by one simple desire to help the healthcare workers in their community, took the initiative to produce protective visors using 3D printers. All in order to cope with a potential shortage of this type of equipment due to the COVID-19 crisis.
The best part of this project is that they voluntarily took on this initiative and seeked some important allies such as the director of their school, Mr. Guy Dumais, the regional vice-president of sales and operations for eastern Canada for Bureau en Gros, Mr. Rudel Caron and the president of the board of directors from our Foundation, Mr. Bernard Pitre. On April 2nd, they donated the first 100 visors to l’Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal and hope to increase production.
They generously shared the instructions for this project, in the hopes that other individuals across Quebec will follow their initiative. You can visit https://collaboration3d.ca for more information. We can already see some similar projects underway.
Since their first production, the young students received the help from several individuals, such as family and friends of Mr. Jean-Gabriel Maurice, project manager at Énergère. Here are the individuals participating in the making of these visors with the students from Bois-de-Boulogne: Guillaume Perras, Claude Perras, Pierre-André Bouchard, Jérémy Maurice et Éliot Maurice. They have been producing hoops on which the students attach the protective visors.
A few days to set-up!
How did all this great adventure begin? On Thursday March 26th, Angela Nauleau-Javaudin, a student at Bois-de-Boulogne College, discovers that a company in France (United 3D Makers) has launched the manufacturing of protective visors using 3D printers to help hospitals. She quickly gets in touch with the director of this company, Michael Introligator, to understand the production model. He immediately helps her with valuable advice.
With the help of two other students from the same CEGEP, Olivier Godfroy and Frédéric Larochelle, they quickly begin to manufacture prototypes with two personal 3D printers. This was the first phase of this initiative. As of Saturday March 28 th, they reach out to the president of the board of directors of the Montreal Sacré-Cœur Hospital Foundation, Mr. Bernard Pitre, who is very excited and supports this project. It was necessary to start production as soon as possible since this project would save lives. At the same time, the director of the Bois-de-Boulogne College decided to lend these motivated students 3 additional 3D printers.The next day, the management of Bureau en Gros immediately agrees to give them all the necessary equipment available in nearby stores. Thanks to their quick response, they have enough to protect 1,250 healthcare workers!
The second phase of the initiative is launched on Monday March 30th: a production on 5 3D printers. The objective: protect 100 additional workers per day per visor. Time is of the essence.
On Thursday April 2nd, the first 100 visors are delivered at Sacré-Cœur. In addition, the management at Bureau en Gros offers the students involved an additional printer and enough to produce an extra 3,000 protective visors.
This great initiative has yet to be over. Thanks to student volunteers and others who followed suit, our caring experts, our guardian angels, will be well protected and hopefully they will avoid being infected with COVID-19 and infecting others. Donations collected on the Foundation’s website continue to increase, thanks to the mobilization and the participation of the members of the Foundation’s Board of Directors. You can also donate to this project by clicking here. This will allow the purchase of equipment to increase production. Congratulations to these resourceful students who have their hearts in the right place!