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"The whole thing started because a doctor friend of ours told us he was quite scared, having to go in and deal with potentially positive people, when it was just impossible to get visors any more. So we thought, 'There must be some way we can help', and my husband Christopher, who's an engineer, came up with the idea of 3D-printing visors. We got together with his brothers who are also engineers, came up with the designs, and on the 27th of March our first visor came off the printer. One 3D printer was about £250. We had 2 of our own to start with, and Chris's brothers had more. Then we were chatting to a load of friends via WhatsApp and they all said, 'We'll chip in, get this started!'. Their donations enabled us to buy 5 more 3D printers, then we set up a JustGiving page and it absolutely snowballed from there. In the end we raised £60,000 and were able to make and send out over 100,000 visors. When Nissan got wind of it, they made another 300,000 for the government at cost. The local community was amazing too. People really wanted to help and were delivering them to hospitals and care homes for us. Then a company called Freight Brokers heard us on the radio and offered to deliver everything for free.
"One real challenge was that the screens had to be made out of polycarbonate plastic and cut to size, which was really hard to find. But we thought, 'We've got to do as many as we can'. Nurses were standing in our driveway crying, just shaking with fear about having to go into work. Some were coming to thank us, and some were coming to pick them up. We'd provide packs with the screen and the band and instructions, or if they needed it immediately, we’d give them one we'd already assembled. In the end we had 10 printers running day and night in our living room - we had to clear all the furniture out, and there were boxes everywhere and this constant hum. It was quite a production and the children were all helping. It made us feel great and kept us busy. We were all tired, but so happy to be able to help."
"The whole thing started because a doctor friend of ours told us he was quite scared, having to go in and deal with potentially positive people, when it was just impossible to get visors any more. So we thought, 'There must be some way we can help', and my husband Christopher, who's an engineer, came up with the idea of 3D-printing visors. We got together with his brothers who are also engineers, came up with the designs, and on the 27th of March our first visor came off the printer. One 3D printer was about £250. We had 2 of our own to start with, and Chris's brothers had more. Then we were chatting to a load of friends via WhatsApp and they all said, 'We'll chip in, get this started!'. Their donations enabled us to buy 5 more 3D printers, then we set up a JustGiving page and it absolutely snowballed from there. In the end we raised £60,000 and were able to make and send out over 100,000 visors. When Nissan got wind of it, they made another 300,000 for the government at cost. The local community was amazing too. People really wanted to help and were delivering them to hospitals and care homes for us. Then a company called Freight Brokers heard us on the radio and offered to deliver everything for free.
"One real challenge was that the screens had to be made out of polycarbonate plastic and cut to size, which was really hard to find. But we thought, 'We've got to do as many as we can'. Nurses were standing in our driveway crying, just shaking with fear about having to go into work. Some were coming to thank us, and some were coming to pick them up. We'd provide packs with the screen and the band and instructions, or if they needed it immediately, we’d give them one we'd already assembled. In the end we had 10 printers running day and night in our living room - we had to clear all the furniture out, and there were boxes everywhere and this constant hum. It was quite a production and the children were all helping. It made us feel great and kept us busy. We were all tired, but so happy to be able to help."
"The whole thing started because a doctor friend of ours told us he was quite scared, having to go in and deal with potentially positive people, when it was just impossible to get visors any more. So we thought, 'There must be some way we can help', and my husband Christopher, who's an engineer, came up with the idea of 3D-printing visors. We got together with his brothers who are also engineers, came up with the designs, and on the 27th of March our first visor came off the printer. One 3D printer was about £250. We had 2 of our own to start with, and Chris's brothers had more. Then we were chatting to a load of friends via WhatsApp and they all said, 'We'll chip in, get this started!'. Their donations enabled us to buy 5 more 3D printers, then we set up a JustGiving page and it absolutely snowballed from there. In the end we raised £60,000 and were able to make and send out over 100,000 visors. When Nissan got wind of it, they made another 300,000 for the government at cost. The local community was amazing too. People really wanted to help and were delivering them to hospitals and care homes for us. Then a company called Freight Brokers heard us on the radio and offered to deliver everything for free.