Why design this?

There have been alot of great 3D printed designs generated for the medical industry in the last couple of months, which are excellent. However they take a while to create (2-3 hours just for printing), and have to adhere to strict medical design needs (as they should!). Many of these designs aren't producible to scale for all of our non-medical, yet essential workers in our grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants, sanitation, etc. Furthermore, many of our essential workers don't have access to 3D printers, so they can't make PPE themselves!

What this design does differently

• Using a baseball cap as a base makes sense. Everyone has one and it cuts down on material needed to be used
• Baseball caps are accessible, customizable in terms of sizing, and are overall more comfortable to wear
• Because the safety pins can be moved along the brim, this design will work with a number of shields

Consider the following for choosing DIY material for shields:

Size

• the ideal sheet size of material to fit around the outside brim is around 15" wide by 9-10" high depending on the length of your neck. This is not a regular sheet size like 8.5x11 which can make finding materials a bit odd.
• You can use a smaller piece of material, such as these 9x12 heavy duty job ticket holders found at staples, but depending on the size of your brim, it may not give you fill side coverage. Remember though, frontal coverage is better than none.

Clarity

• Many of the DIY materials you might consider, like document covers, thick mylar flim, etc, are "clear" but not fully transparent, Many times you can still see through these materials, but not quite as sharply. You will have to decide how accurate your vision needs to be for the task at hand.

Durability

• Often times the clearer a plastic material, the thinner it is, which may be more susceptible to wear and tear due to time, sanitizing, and environmental conditions. Avoid anything thinner than 3mil thick.