RDM’s First Move: AltavaMask Design and Manufacturing
The Challenge Presented
COVID-19 is affecting our country in more ways than we could imagine. First responders are doing their best to help people affected, but there is an undersupply of masks and Personal Protective Equipment. Further, the Personal Protective Equipment that is available isn’t always doing the job to the best of its ability. RDM realized that the most common downloadable mask, the Montana mask, is great and a lot of people recommend distributing them to medical professions. However, these masks didn’t pass the Respiratory Fit Test, a regulated FDA test that passes or fails the mask based on if the mask can fit the face of someone who wears it if the mask can separate a worker’s respiratory system from ambient air.
Who is RDM and how is RDM helping?
RDM is an engineering company in Gainesville, Florida. Right now, America is facing an unexpected challenge with the COVID-19 pandemic. Our team at RDM wants to help our country in this time of need. We are making Personal Protective Equipment, such as face masks and protective gear design files of products that support our front line and people at home, and make the equipment free to download. This is our opportunity to give back and provide support to the hardworking organizations that are making a difference in this crucial time. Additionally, we are opening up RDM's facilities for manufacturing, and distributing products to organizations in need. We are in need of your help to join us because, without an active support network, our difference will be negligible.
Join us, share this post, and submit your ideas to our page, linked here: www.rdminnovation.com/covid19-connect-with-us/ Anything you submit will help our American heroes. Together, we will overcome the adversity and play our role in winning the fight against COVID-19.
COVID-19 Action Team of RDM:
Domenic Aluise- Production Manager
Elezar Tonev- Lead Engineer
Jacob Barrineau- Purchaser & Supply Chain Manager
Brian Trupo- Chief Marketing Strategist
Pierce Ernst- Webmaster & Digital Marketing Strategist
Our Plan
We have joined forces with Altavian, a manufacturing company who is making a total of 130,000 COVID-19 response masks that will be guaranteed over the next couple of months. As an engineering company, RDM has been able to help set a goal to produce 50 filter brackets a day for the cause using our manufacturing equipment.
Most health care providers use particulate respirator masks known as N95 masks. These masks have primarily been developed for medical use to keep out contaminants. These surgical and particulate respirators are meant to seal to one's face and have been commonly seen as single use masks in hospitals. On the contrary, other types of homemade masks don't seal properly around the face and aren't as effective as some might think. Regular surgical masks that don't have a seal will have little to no effect on stopping the spread of airborne disease. This is why having a respirator mask with a gasket face seal makes the difference in protection. Further, the most common N95 respirator masks are said to filter out 95% of particles in a worst-case scenario testing. Knowing this information we have created the designs to a 3D printed respirator mask that has a better fit and seal for protection where it counts.
RDM and Altavia worked together to create a mask that would be extremely protective and would pass the Respiratory Fit Test. The key was designing a silicone gasket along the outer edge of the mask to provide a perfect seal to prevent contaminants from getting in. To make this happen, Altavia came to RDM, who has years of expertise in working with silicone and plastics. In just a matter of days, the two teams spent countless hours creating the new AltavaMask design. After many meetings and phone calls, the team finally perfected the design. Altavia plans to create over 130,000 different masks that are made of 4 different parts-- the filter material, the filter bracket, the mask itself, and the gasket. RDM has taken over part of the gasket manufacturing with its 3D printers and sending all of the gasket pieces completed to Altavia, who will be distributing the finished products.