Bay Area Students Use 3-D Printing to Make Face Shields For Hospitals

Students in the Bay Area are harnessing the power of 3D printing to make hundreds of face shields for healthcare workers across the country.

Students at Oakland's Madison Park Academy gather twice a week to package face shields printed out by their teacher, Tawana Guillaume.

"I get to come back to school and say, 'Hey this 3D printing thing that we've been talking about? It's actually useful, it's a skill that you now have. Engineering is a thing that you can do, it's accessible, it's useful and it's not far off thing that other people in other communities do, like you can do this," Guillaume told CBS San Francisco.

They've produced about a thousand face shields so far and donated them to hospitals across the country, including Alta Bates in Berkeley, St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco, Mt. Sinai in New York City and Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., among others.

"We're not just in our little community but we're helping other communities as well," says Mario Medina, a junior at Madison Park Academy.

According to the Oakland Unified School District, a group called 3D Printing Friends has donated over 5,100 shields to date, and the students of Madison Park Academy cleaned and packaged most of them.

"Our students have been working through extremely challenging circumstances but that hasn't dampened their dedication or their brilliance," said Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell. "I applaud Ms. Guillaume and her remarkable young people."

The project is set to continue through the summer.