🏆Toby Weymouth, marketing assistant at PLUS Automation wins The Engineer magazine's Young Innovator award for his Coronavirus PPE visor cooling fan project in the Collaborate to Innovate 2020 Awards
Toby Weymouth, marketing assistant at PLUS Automation, has been recognised for his project to help frontline wearers of PPE visors battling the Coronavirus. Having enlisted the help of Made in the Midland member Central Scanning he came up with a project that was supported by companies across the UK and Europe.
Equipped with a rudimentary knowledge of 3D printing and CAD software Toby Weymouth – an A-level Design & Technology student at King’s School, Worcester, set about designing and prototyping a fan-based cooling unit that could be used to reduce the discomfort of frontline workers by ducting air behind a PPE visor onto the wearer’s face.
He came up with an innovative idea to help frontline workers when they needed it most. The cooling device uses a 5V mini fan in conjunction with a 3D printed housing to clip onto face visors or goggles and provide a gentle breeze across the face. It is powered by USB and designed to run from a mobile portable charger in the user's pocket.
The resulting design uses a 3D-printed housing to contain a small, light, quiet fan, which clips onto any visor and is powered by a USB phone battery pack, connected using a 1.5m cable. The battery pack can be kept in the user’s pocket, which removes the weight of the battery on the head.
Toby said that a typical small battery pack will run the fan for half a day, whilst a larger pack is capable of running the fan for an entire working day. The USB battery packs can therefore be instantly swapped and are recharged using phone chargers, laptops, or increasingly USB plugs.
With the design in place, his thoughts turned to manufacture. “As an individual student, I realised I wouldn’t be able to produce vast quantities by myself and therefore designed the product to be made easily by individuals/companies across the UK,” he said. “To do this I created a website including detailed instructions, and arranged discounts on the required parts and posted all of 3D printer files needed along with instructions to www.CoolingFans.co.uk
Before embarking on his current project Weymouth was a member of EDGE4x4, a King’s School team which twice won the UK heats of the Land Rover 4×4 In Schools Technology Challenge and which was shortlisted for 2019's Collaborate To Innovate Awards. He explained that he drew on the contacts and lessons learned during this competition, to secure support for his latest initiative.
One of the first organisations to help him out was the electrical wholesale company, CPC, which supplied all the electrical parts – 40x40mm fans and USB cables.
Meanwhile, on the 3D printing side, Bromsgrove basedm and Made in the Midland's member, 3D scanning specialists Central Scanning, kindly printed his prototype fan housings allowing him to work on optimising the airflow. The European division of US firm Makerbot, donated and sent a 3D printer from Germany, so that he could produce the fan housings himself. RS Components supplied the ABS 3D printing filament for the fan housing and offered support to share the project to a wide audience.
Whilst the airborne nature of the Coronavirus stopped the project's roll-out, the C2I judging panel was impressed by the way in which Toby went about his project: refining a design, establishing a supply chain, and identifying a potential route to manufacture.
Meanwhile, Toby said that the experience has fuelled his ambition to pursue a career in engineering. “The knowledge gained from prototyping a real-world product from start to end, in addition to agreeing to partnerships, writing instructions and building a website has proven several valuable learning experiences,” he said.