APSU This Week: GIS Center hopes to produce 3D-printed respiratory face masks
(Posted April 13, 2020)
While still leading a statewide effort to produce face shields for medical workers battling the spread of coronavirus in Tennessee, Austin Peay’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Center has taken on another potentially life-saving project.
The center’s staff and its students have developed and are testing prototypes of 3D-printed respirator face masks for frontline medical personnel. The center’s director, Mike Wilson, thinks that despite the challenges of producing a respirator with the proper filtration, the center soon will have a mask it can produce and send to medical workers.
“Unlike the shield, a mask has more medical requirements including fit/comfort and filtration ability,” Wilson said. “A proper mask will provide a tight seal on the face and filter small particles (I believe 0.3 microns for viruses).”
The GIS Center is looking for available materials to use as the filter in the masks.
“This is difficult due to the filtration needed, as well as the supply,” Wilson said. “We’re trying to come up with a mask that acts like an N95 (respirator) mask.”
The respirator masks also take longer to print than face shields, he said, presenting another problem in producing them in a fast-moving crisis.
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‘Being the change right now may seem difficult’
Austin Peay State University social work sophomore Mallory Fundora founded Project Yesu – a charity that provides food and education to Ugandan children – when she was 11.
Project Yesu has grown in the years since – adding child sponsorship and feeding programs with plans to build a school – but the coronavirus pandemic has had an impact on Fundora and her cause.
“This is an extremely tough time for Project Yesu as a whole right now,” Fundora said. “I was supposed to be in Uganda in just a few weeks, but obviously plans have been changed in order to keep everyone safe.
Project Yesu recently set up 15 handwashing stations around Musima in an effort to combat the spread of coronavirus.
“Being the change right now may seem difficult,” Fundora said. “It’s easier to focus on your current problems rather than what is happening to the people around us.
“I’m always fighting to be the change in Uganda, but it can be in your own community as well,” Fundora said. “It may take some creativity but changing the world can happen from your own home.”
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APSU provides limited number of laptops to students to go online
The Austin Peay State University COVID-19 Task Force developed a new Laptop Loan Program to provide laptop computers to students without computer access on a first-come, first-served basis.
A limited number of computers are available. To request a laptop loan, visit https://govstech.apsu.edu/TDClient/2071/Portal/Requests/ServiceDet?ID=14868.
The University has gathered laptops from labs and departments all across campus to provide for students.
The APSU Advancement Office also developed the Govs Give Back Fund to provide urgent financial assistance for students, faculty and staff who have suffered severe economic, medical or similar hardships. To give to this fund, visit this link.
To request a laptop, students must have an APSU student ID, a valid driver’s license, a state-issued ID card or a passport. Students will be notified via email when their laptop is available for pickup at the APSU Woodward Library.
APSU loaning MiFi wireless routers to rural students without internet access
Austin Peay State University’s Distance Education Office is now loaning a limited number of MiFi tablets for students in rural areas with limited or no internet access at no cost to APSU students. A MiFi is a wireless router that acts as a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot.
If an APSU student living in a rural area needs internet access, he or she may check out a MiFi tablet at the University’s Woodward Library lobby. The library lobby is open on Mondays and Thursdays from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. When visiting the lobby, students must follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines for social distancing. If a student lives more than 60 miles from campus or is unable to come to the library, they can call 931-221-7582 to request that a device be mailed to them.
With all APSU classes now online for the remainder of the spring and summer, some students in rural areas are having difficulty accessing the internet. The University originally partnered with several sites in rural counties that offered free internet access, but those locations have closed as the new coronavirus has spread. The University’s MiFi tablets now provide a way for students to continue their studies at APSU.
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Austin Peay to host virtual career fair for students during coronavirus crisis
Austin Peay State University will host its first-ever virtual career fair for students whose job hunt has been slowed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The fair also offers students a new and innovative way to talk live with employers and graduate schools to start their careers, find internships or master’s degree programs and even to seek part-time work while they finish school.
The virtual career fair is 10 a.m.-6 p.m. April 22 at www.apsu.edu/careers/jobs4govs/. Students are encouraged to log in to Jobs4Govs using their OneStop identification and RSVP prior to the fair. Students can share their resumes with employers as part of the RSVP process. Students also can preview employers and graduate schools scheduled to attend the fair. Jobs4Govs access for alumni job seekers is available as well.
Students can RSVP to the virtual career fair at https://bit.ly/apvirtual2020. More than 25 employers and graduate schools are registered to participate, including Amsurg, CDE Lightband, Elite Sports Medicine + Orthopedics, Mutual of Omaha and Tennessee Department of Revenue.
For more information and instructions on how to navigate the Virtual Career Fair successfully, visit https://www.apsu.edu/careers/events/.
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Art + Design celebrates student work with virtual exhibition
The Department of Art + Design is celebrating the end of the 2019-20 academic year with the 52nd Annual Juried Student Exhibition. The professionally juried exhibition opens virtually on April 6 and runs through April 30. All are invited to attend.
You can see the exhibition here.
To read more about the exhibition, go here.
APSU Art + Design students taking work online for senior exhibits
The student art gallery, like most of the Austin Peay State University campus, is empty. Usually, at this point in the semester, graduating Art + Design students use the space to host public exhibitions of their work, but this spring has been a bit unusual. In early March, the spread of COVID-19 caused all APSU classes to move fully online, effectively canceling the art exhibits for 10 APSU seniors enrolled in the department's Studio Art Capstone Thesis class.
But the persistent young artists aren’t letting a global pandemic stop their artistic careers. Beginning this Friday and continuing for the next three weeks, the students will host virtual exhibits every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
All shows will be announced on the APSU Art + Design Instagram and Facebook pages. Each artist has picked a slightly different strategy - a website, virtual world, video collection, Minecraft site, digital flipbook - so each announcement will take the viewer to a new web address.
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As the virus keeps people at home, APSU’s Foy Fitness Center steps up with online sessions
As we all inch our way towards reclusion, it’s important to remember to keep our bodies, as well as our minds, in shape. Lucky for Austin Peay students, Lauren Wilkinson, assistant director of services at the Foy Fitness & Recreation Center on campus, is coordinating online fitness instruction courses.
Wilkinson said she hopes to have Zumba, yoga and cardio/high-intensity interval training (HIIT) live sessions in the coming weeks.
For more information about live yoga, Zumba and exercise sessions, contact Wilkinson at wilkinsonl@apsu.edu or send a message directly to the Foy Center via its Facebook or Instagram pages @apsufoy.
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‘We Can’t Make It Without the Arts’ YouTube series continues
Austin Peay’s College of Arts and Letters has launched a new YouTube series that focuses on sharing solace through “the power, depth of reflection and context only available from the arts.”
The college’s dean, Barry Jones, hopes the series – called “We Can’t Make It Without the Arts” – will help viewers deal with “the isolation and uncertainty of the coronavirus and social distancing.”
A new video featuring a faculty or staff member will post every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to the Arts and Letters YouTube channel, Jones said. The presenter will “share something from the arts that they turn to during times of anxiety, something that gives them hope and helps them navigate turbulent waters.”
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COVID-19 updates
We’ve also posted all the updates to www.apsu.edu/coronavirus.
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