#safetoplay design challenge

Exceeding our expectations, there were over 70 submissions participating in the contest! We couldn’t be more inspired after seeing all these awesome designs.

Designs were judged on clarity, aesthetics, material (such as antimicrobial copper) and creative interpretation of The World Health Organization’s advice on safe practices during the pandemic. After a series of discussions between all judges, we came out with a final result. A creative and aesthetic virus-resistant Soap Ring and a contactless sweets dispenser won the first and second places respectively.

Here’s what Sebastian (the first place) had to say when he received his prize, “I was going to tell you (Snapmaker) that the machine arrived yesterday in perfect condition! I haven’t stopped using it since. The truth is that I was impressed with the packaging and the quality of all the components. Without a doubt it was the best unboxing and assembly I ever did! Each piece in its place and everything perfectly labeled.”

Think and live positively

We have been encouraging our users to live in a positive way since the pandemic breakout and have donated masks including other necessities to our distributors and users in need.

We also designed the Snapmaker DIY Protective Gear in the hopes to help our users print healthcare equipment using their Snapmaker machines during dire situations.

Besides donating goods and materials, we also wanted to show emotional support to our users. A wife of one of our users, who was unfortunately infected by the coronavirus, reached out to Snapmaker to ask for a birthday present to encourage her husband. We immediately responded to her request and sent a lovely laser-engraved print.

During the hard time, instead of complaining about the virus or how boring it was to stay at home, the Snapmaker community was making good use of this special time to strengthen their skills like designing 3D models and finding the best set-ups to do their 3D printing, laser, and CNC projects.

Some of them used their Snapmakers to voluntarily print face shields and ear savers for local healthcare workers, and door openers for neighbors, relatives and friends to help them stay safe.

Although #safetoplay has ended, the spirit of living positively in the New Normal still carries on. The world has eye-witnessed the power of makers. There’s strength in numbers, one team cannot do everything but together we can help make the world better.

Much love,
Team Snapmaker

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Snapmaker DIY protective gear

Since the beginning of the Coronavirus breakout, we have been looking for ways to help fight COVID-19 and we asked ourselves what we could do as a 3D printing company. Additive manufacturing has much potential and we could see how it would help in a situation like this where medical equipment is running low. There are already plenty of designs online, but we notice there is a gap that could be filled. Not many designs work on machines with relatively small build volumes.

To resolve that issue, we set out to design our own version of Snap face shield, of which pieces of the head bands could be printed in only a couple of hours. And the advantage here is that you can 3D print the head band with small 3D printers, including the Snapmaker Original! The rest of the making process only takes a couple of minutes and the whole snap face shield could be easily assembled and disassembled.

Our EVA goggles are designed to be easy and quick to produce. 3D printing goggles takes a long time and it is just not very efficient especially when hospitals need them in large quantities. By laser cutting instead of 3D printing the goggles, this solves the problem of taking tremendous time and filament. We also released our beta version of the EVA mask and buckle. The making process is still fairly straightforward and convenient. Users are welcome to share their thoughts and suggestions on our Wikifactory page to help improve the designs. The designs are not perfect, and there is a lot of room for improvements.

Please keep in mind that these DIY projects are not meant to substitute any medical equipment, and they haven’t been approved by relevant agencies. Please ask your local medical centers for guidance and avoid having a false sense of security, as that will put you and your family at risk.

Donating Medical Face Masks to Our Distributors

Like we mentioned in the previous updates, we’ve been in close contact with our distributors around the world and have learned about their situations second-hand. Most of them are in dire situations where they are running low on medical supply. Just a couple weeks ago we had exactly the same problem, which just makes us feel even worse seeing the past repeating itself.

We were discussing internally how to help our distributors. Even if they are on the other side of the world, we still feel the urge to do something when they are in need. Up till now, we have donated hundreds to a thousand face masks to each distributor in the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Italy, the United States, Poland, Germany, Netherlands, Russia, United Arab Emirates, and Japan. The face masks donated were sent based on the need of our distributors. And a portion of these face masks would be distributed to local hospitals by our distributors. We know this is not much, compared to how much supply big companies out there have donated, but we believe that every little bit helps.

We must realize this is a continuous battle we are fighting and it is an ongoing process. That means the hardships won’t stop until at least a couple of months. This is just a quick update on what we have been doing the past weeks but our efforts won’t stop there. We will continue to look for ways to contribute whenever possible.

Resources From the 3D Printing Community

During the past two weeks, we have noticed many users sharing resources on our platforms, which is great and we wish people do more of that. So far, we have found two reliable resources from our Facebook groups and forum and would like to share with you here. The first one is the Montana Mask by Make The Masks. The Montana Mask is “a 3D-printable, highly effective filtration mask that can be fitted to the provider’s face and sanitized between users.” The design is permanently free for anyone to produce. The mask is accepted at major hospitals in Montana, Texas, California, Georgia, Colorado and other states.

We would also like to share the hands-free 3D printed door openers created by Materialise. They have come up with a fascinating idea to open doors with arms to minimize contact. It is a free design as well that can help stop the spread of the virus. We wanted to say thank you to our users for doing your part and sharing these awesome resources within our community and now we hope to reach more people by sharing the information. Please go to the links provided above to check for more information about these designs and see if you could help out.

These are difficult times and we are facing a crisis that we have never encountered before. We know many people are suffering, but crises bring out the best in people. There are so many people that risk their own lives in order to help others. We are just trying to do the same and contribute however much we could. The world needs to come together to get through this outbreak. Please share your feedback on our social platforms and Wikifactory regarding our DIY projects. We hope that the information we provided helped. Thank you and please stay safe.

Much love,
The Snapmaker Team

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