Author: pwrduo

Moonlighter FabLab (Maker Faire Miami Licensee)  has been working non-stop since late March providing Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) to hospitals, firefighters, and police stations in South Florida. This effort ramped up quickly with a massive donation of PETG plastic from Coke Florida through the Open Source Medical Supplies Central and South Florida group. Just under 1 ton of plastic – enough to make 8,500 Verkstan Face Shields. Even though Moonlighter’s FabLab has lots of equipment at the shop, the Moonlighter crew knew they had to reach out to the entire South Florida maker community to make this large quantity in a short period of time. All of the thousands of PPE items that have been created and delivered would not have been possible without the incredible support from local groups across the maker community. 
One group, in particular, that has blown our mind, is the FIRST Robotics Competition Team 59 RAMTECH, ( https://www.ramtech59.com/ ) from Miami Coral Park High School. This group of dedicated high school students has been helping us with the post-processing of the 3D printed Verkstan headbands. They have helped with over 4700 so far! And through them, we know that there are at least 20 other FIRST teams (www.firstinflorida.org) across the state that are doing the same. They are working side by side with Makerspaces across the state to help first line responders. The students from Miami Coral Park Senior High’s Ramtech group have volunteered approximately 550 hours, over 2 months, to complete these PPE for our South Florida community. Daniela Pujala and Mathew Vervuurt also made a special delivery to the Coral Gables Fire and Police Departments on behalf of our team of volunteers. A special thanks goes to our graduating seniors, Katya Mollinedo and Christian Guiterez, who still found in their hearts to give back, though their senior year was challenging and changed by this pandemic.