Hello, we are a team of four engineering students at WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute) that are currently taking the Introduction to Engineering Design course remotely. One of our projects is to design a face shield for a Newborn Baby. Our goals for the design were increased security, safety and comfortability to the user. 

The general goals of our design are the following:

• Increasing comfort by eliminating the use of straps or elastic bands to secure the head band on the head.
• Increased comfortability for the baby by supplying a wide front surface that goes against the user's head. Due to the sensitivity of the baby’s skin, we would want a large surface in order to decrease the possibility of rubbing. In an ideal the scenario the caretaker can also add a layer of sponge mesh, by gluing/taping on the apparatus
• Final Goal: Increase comfort and safety.

In a very similar scheme to our previous adult-size design, the goal of this one was to include an additional sense of stability and comfort to the user. Being that the user is a baby, we wanted to make sure that it would be easy for the care-taker to place the apparatus on the baby’s head. For that reason we eliminated the hooks at the end. Placing a rubber band on a baby’s head could cause unnecessary rashes. In addition, since the baby will most likely be in a layd position for the majority of the day, we would not want the care-taker to have to disturb the baby to pass an elastic band around its head. Lastly, due to the original bending of the hooks, the apparatus would safely remain on the head with minimal adjustments. We used the average newborn baby’s head circumference (approx. 35cm) to complete these dimensions.

We printed our design in PLA using a Monoprice Maker Select Plus and sliced it using Ultimaker Cura. This printer has a 200 mm x 200 mm build platform, which was large enough to print our final design. Our design takes 1 hour and 31 minutes to print, using 14 grams of filament. The print was 10% infill and did not use a raft, however a skirt was printed around the part to get the filament flowing through the extruder. The print head traveled at 100 mm/s, while the nozzle was at 210 degrees celsius, and the bed was at 60 degrees celsius. Heating the bed was not 100% necessary but through previous testing with the printer, it aids with first layer adhesion. 

By

Mary Decelles

Marc Wicky van Doyer

Eric Stultz 

Angelos Makras 

Part File:

3D Model :