Chinese American teenagers produce 3D-printed PPE to help save lives

With an aim to apply their robotic knowledge and skills to work, Technicbots has done numerous volunteer work such as summer camps to introduce robotics to more students. However, using the skills to actually help the community was new to the teenagers.

"When hosting camps we would have months to prepare the curriculum and we would only have to meet once a week to get things done. But since the situation is different, we really had to work together to meet every day and things are really more urgent than some of the other volunteer work," team member Austin Liu told Xinhua.

Building a production line was not an easy task, especially at this time. Unable to meet in person, students and their coach have virtual meetings every afternoon, reporting progress and assigning new tasks. Suddenly, their homes are transformed into factories, warehouses and meeting rooms.

Working under time pressure and communicating with different groups made the process quite stressful at first, but the students quickly adjusted themselves and overcome the difficulties.

"The rhythm was so quick," said team member John Dunbar. "But I think by now everything falls into place."

According to team member Melody Hu, in order to be more efficient, the 10 team members were divided into nine groups. From making and assembling to sanitizing and packaging, from request processing to material researching, the whole production line was run by students themselves supervised by their coach and parents.