VIDEO: Thuy Dinh was stuck at home while the coronavirus pandemic was quickly moving across the world.
So, the mechanical engineer put her talents to use—from home.
“A lot of people right now who aren't in the medical field feel like there's a sense of helplessness,” Dinh said.
She had seen a design of a protective face shield on Facebook and decided to use her own home 3-D printer to make one.
“This design by Prusa had been floating around my Facebook for a while, so I decided to make one. It was a dollar to make,” she said.
That creation, which Dinh says cost only a dollar, has since sparked a grassroots movement.
“So I started posting them on my Instagram, just the process of it to see if I could figure out which hospitals might need them. And, the next day, five other makers reached out, and now we're running our 3-D printers around the clock to print them and get them distributed to hospitals,” Dinh said.