Posted on Monday, Mar 23rd, 2020
In response to the quick and drastic needs of our local healthcare workers, the community of St. Louis makers and makerspaces have united to help fabricate much-needed hardware for nurses, EMTs and doctors.
Led by maker David Cervantes, Face Shield Initiative STL is composed of volunteer community leaders from MADE Makerspace, Inventor Forge, and Arch Reactor. Together we are pooling the maker resources at hand to help the 1st responder teams, doctors, nurses, and medical staff by fabricating face shields. There is an overwhelming demand or face shields used to protect the facemasks in which medical/responder staff has a finite quantity.
We are responding to this demand by activating local makerspaces and individual makers with access to 3D printers to print an open-source harness made by Prusa Research. Volunteer makers with access to laser cutters or Cricuts are helping by cutting out the transparent PETG face shield film. Volunteers are also aiding by shuttling the materials required to print the harness, the film, and delivery to those in need.
We have now pooled over 15 printers and 6 laser cutters so we can pump out our initial goal of 300 face shields for Barnes-Jewish Hospital. We want to help as many health care workers and hospitals as we can. There has been an overwhelming request to help other medical centers and cities; we want to help as many health care workers and
hospitals as we can. The St. Louis community has already donated over $800 in funds to help supplement our material and transportation costs.
We are restricted by time, material resources, and budgets. This entire operation is a bootstrap effort; every volunteer has used their personal funds and resources in an uncertain economic climate to help others. We are making progress obtaining the PETG face shields, but still require a solid supply. While our maker community continues to
run their 3D printers around the clock, we will quickly run out of PETG and PLA filament, and the elastic bands used to aid securing the shields will run low.
We delivered the first batch of prototypes today, March 22nd, for product refinement to doctors, nurses and first responders. We plan to begin our crowd-sourced mass production efforts by the end of this week. If you’d like to participate in this call to action, please reach out the folks below.
Financial Donations:
Operations
David Cervantes, David@Cervantesdesigns.com
Material Donations
George Fetters, gfetters@gmail.com
Communications
Emily Elhoffer, eelhoffer@gmail.com
Fabrication
Scott Rocca, scottarocca@gmail.com
Posted on Thursday, Mar 19th, 2020
After careful deliberation the board has decided to close Arch Reactor to classes and events effective immediately until further notice. Card access is still enabled and private use is permitted if members continue to 1) Do not come to the space if not feeling 100%. 2) Clean your space with the provided cleaning agents prior and after use. We are sorry for this inconvenience, hope further actions are not required and wish for a prompt return to normalcy. Thank you for your understanding.
-Board
Posted on Friday, Feb 21st, 2020
Pysanky Eggs
Set aside some time between
March 29 and April 11, 2020 to
learn how to decorate Pysanky
(Ukrainian Eggs)
Multiple dates/times available if
you wish instruction or assistance,
come to one or all sessions.
Supplies available anytime AR is
open if you do not need assistance.
Everything supplied but your
creativity! (Donations to the space
appreciated but not required)
Due to the use of lit candles, this
event is not suitable for small
children. All children require close
parental supervision.
More info at:
http://archreactor.org/pysanky
Questions to: sudduthd@gmail.com
Posted on Saturday, Feb 15th, 2020
BE THERE! BE THERE! BE THERE !
Join us for this crazy unique annual fundraising event in it's 10th year with our buddies the GATEWAY BURNERS (the St. Louis local chapter of Burning Man)
MEMBERS - you should look at this as an opportunity to fulfill your 2 hours of volunteer time in and have a great time while doing it as well as to get to know the organization a little more and make connections with your community!
this event is our biggest money maker all year, so please help spread the word; getting friends and family in the know is important...I know it's last minute, but there is still time!!!
hope to see you there!
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About Our Hackerspace
Arch Reactor was founded in 2009 by a group of friends who liked technology, programming, making, and pizza. Now St. Louis' largest hackerspace, Arch Reactor's growing membership continues to bring new skills, projects, equipment, and people to one place.
For a deeper understanding of what we're about, you should check out our explanation of hackerspaces, perhaps read about one of our members' projects, or (best of all) come meet us in person at the next open event!