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In March 2020, with the coronavirus pandemic straining hospital capacity and shutting down global supply chains, healthcare facilities faced a desperate shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) for workers on the front lines.

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UW Health University Hospital contacted the University of Wisconsin (UW) College of Engineering’s Design Innovation Lab (<a href="https://making.engr.wisc.edu/shield/" target="_blank">Makerspace</a>), wondering if they could quickly produce 1,000 face shields for their healthcare providers. 
The shields are worn over surgical or N95 masks to protect from respiratory droplets that contagious patients might cough or sneeze out. 
Unlike N95s or ventilators, face shields can be built without specialized materials or medical knowledge. Lennon Rodgers of the UW Makerspace made a quick trip to Home Depot to gather supplies and do a rough prototype that he showed to his wife, a physician.&nbsp;
He then reached out to Jesse Darley, Director of Mechanical Engineering at Delve, and Brian Ellison of<a href="https://www.midwestproto.com/" target="_blank"> Midwest Prototyping</a>. Over the next couple of days, the team worked closely with UW Health’s infection control department to settle on a design that was familiar to healthcare providers and matched the existing workflow of single-use, donning, doffing, and material handling. 
<h2>The Birth of Badger Shield</h2>
The design, which the group dubbed Badger Shield, uses four materials: a clear PETG (Glycol Modified version of Polyethylene Terephthalate) lens, a polyurethane foam cushion for the user’s forehead, a latex-free elastic for the headband, and two staples to connect the band to the lens. They decided to use commonly available materials, rather than 3D-printing, so production could scale up quickly to meet the extreme demand.

Face Shield on Jesse

Just three days after the initial request, Delve published an <a href="https://www.delve.com/insights/face-shield-designs-to-fill-the-gap" target="_blank">open-source design</a> on our website. To make it easier for others to produce, the team compiled lists of suppliers selling raw materials.
Largely in tandem with the development of the face shield design, operations management experts from UW-Madison and UCLA developed an online portal to match healthcare facilities and manufacturers. The operations experts created a software program that prioritizes requests by urgency and proximity to manufacturers in real time. 
While standard PPE channels prioritize hospitals, the Badger Shield algorithm is designed to also get supplies to smaller medical facilities and essential workers like nursing home aides and garbage collectors. A team of a few people created this program, which has handled requests for millions of shields, within a week.
<h2>Rapid adoption worldwide</h2>
Word of the open-source design and manufacturer-provider portal spread quickly through the healthcare, university, manufacturing, and maker communities. The project received international media attention from outlets including <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/tinkerers-created-face-shield-being-used-hospitals/" target="_blank">Wired</a>, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-companies-innovate-to-fight-the-coronavirus-in-echo-of-world-war-ii-11587045652" target="_blank">The Wall Street Journal</a>, and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01246-3" target="_blank">Nature</a>. Within six weeks of launch, 350 healthcare facilities had requested 5.4 million shields through the Badger Shield website.

Biz Ford COVID 19 Medical Equipment Production 09 1

At one point, Midwest Prototyping and other manufacturers around Madison, WI, were producing around 30,000 a day. Within a week of the design’s publication, Ford Motor Company began making the shields and announced two months later that they had produced 15 million. Approximately 400 manufacturers from nearly 20 countries ranging from the UK and India to Nairobi and Myanmar have made shields. This includes iconic brands like Nike, Apple, and Toyota. Worldwide, manufacturers estimate they can produce about two million shields a day.
Badger Shield has shown that a distributed supply chain can create massive quantities of simple but effective PPE in a short time. Manufacturers were encouraged to establish a fair market price with their customers, creating a win-win for suppliers and purchasers. 
In addition to providing hospitals with desperately needed gear, the project was a lifeline for many manufacturers who would have otherwise closed. It instilled a sense of purpose and pride for many companies and their employees during a very dark period. Badger Shield has shown the potential of open-source collaboration to quickly address seemingly insurmountable problems through the united effort of many hands.

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