MANHATTAN, Kan. (KSNT) – With a shortage of personal protective equipment around the country, some students at Kansas State University are taking matters into their hands, designing and printing face masks for healthcare workers.

The Digital Fabrication club brought school home with them by bringing the 3D printers straight into their college houses.

They print the KSU-themed face shields around the clock, 24 hours a day. Each piece takes two hours to print. The supplies cost roughly $2.

The president of the club, DJ Plankinton, said the design process was easy.

“We started with an open-source model, someone else had already made so it was really
just editing it,” Plankinton said.

But housing the printers is a labor of love, one that wakes these students up in the middle of the night.

“You run into a lot of issues that you can’t really prepare for so I’ve done a lot of maintenance on this,” Grant Delka said. “I have to wake up every once in a while and change out the print because it finishes at weird times.”

The students plan to distribute the masks to local healthcare workers, including the center on campus.