Networks of digital manufacturing of face shields and the Covid-19: design, maker culture and social mobilization

This paper addresses the issue of the configuration of a network for the digital fabrication of personal protective equipment to fight the pandemic of COVID-19. The main aim is to highlight how creative and innovative design practices, based on digital fabrication, have contributed to combat the new coronavirus in Brazil, concerning the design, production and distribution of face shields. The paper is the result of both exploratory, descriptive and qualitative research. In addition to documentary data and revisiting design literature, this work sought to understand the network formation modus operandi for digital manufacture of face shields, based on examples carried out in every region of the country. In conclusion, it argued that these social mobilization networks are based on the assumptions of the maker culture and reveal the potential for an open, distributed and resilient design to face this contemporary and future crisis.


INTRODUCTION
A few months ago, the world experienced the first devastating effects of the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). The cause agent of COVID-19, first identified in Wuhan, in China, was recognized on December 31, 2019 (Brasil, 2020b). Within merely one month, on January 30, 2020, the outbreak of this disease established a "Public Health Emergency of International Importance" (Pan-American Health Organization, 2020). Abruptly, on March 11, 2020, COVID-19 was described by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a "pandemic" (Pan-American Health Organization, 2020). In Latin America, the virus rapidly spread and, in Brazil, the first case of the disease was registered on February 26, 2020 (Polato & Muraro, 2020).
Due to the pandemic, various and profound impacts -both individual and collective, ranging from local to global and of varied natures, such as psychological, social, economic, cultural and political -have been accounted for . As leading preventive measures, social isolation and the interruption of non-essential activities have been adopted throughout the world (Campos, 2020). Several countries, states and cities have restricted the circulation of people, goods and merchandise, including even closing countries' borders (Sabino & Moura, 2020), imposing a new world order. professionals. What emerges is the development of several networks, groups and collectives that quickly structured themselves to jointly propose solutions to this newer crisis, based on their know-how, founded on collaborative practices and open design.
Understanding the modus operandi of the organization and development of these groups is essential to reveal the strategic logic underlying the processes of social mobilization that has fostered actions involving digital manufacturing in the context of the pandemic. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to highlight how creative and innovative practices of collaboration and open design within a generation of economically accessible products and services (based on digital manufacturing and the maker culture), have contributed to fight the new coronavirus in Brazil, especially with regard to the design, production and distribution of face shields. Articles were collected between March 23 and April 23, 2020, when social distancing measures determined by federal, state and/or city governments were put to practice and the contamination curve had not yet reached its peak (Brasil, 2020a). The spatial scope was restricted to Brazil and the focus was on national coverage news concerning the pandemic.

METHODS
The selection included at least one initiative in each of the five Brazilian regions and considered the structured networks or collectives of digital fabrication. These collectives were found directly through Google search engine, using the following keywords: "face shield", "digital manufacturing", "coronavirus" and "COVID-19" and/or indirectly by surveying data from news reports.
The survey as a whole intended understanding what was the modus operandi of these groups' development. More specifically, we can say that the question was: what is the modus operandi of the Design community on the fight against coronavirus pandemic in Brazil? To this end, the following categories were adopted to analyse networks (and/or collectives) regarding the creation, manufacturing and distribution of face shields ( Figure 1

RESULTS
Throughout the world, many individuals called makers "have been organizing themselves to gather resources, tools and skills to quickly produce equipment that can help fight COVID-19" (Rigues & Rolfini, 2020). In Brazil, several initiatives are being organized to rapid prototyping and digital manufacture that seek to present solutions to combat the spread of the coronavirus. Table 1 presents some examples of Brazilian networks for the digital manufacture of face shields and their production. In the Northeast region, the project "Face Shield for Life 3D" stands out, launched on March 25, 2020, whose management group "is formed by researchers from the Bahian School of Medicine and Public Health (BAHIANA), State University of Bahia (UNEB), Federal University of Western Bahia (UFOB) and Youth Center for Science and Culture (CJCC)" (Face ..., 2020).
The main objective of the project is to provide free face shields manufactured in 3D printers for health professionals in Bahia's public health system who are working to fight COVID-19 (Face ..., 2020).
It is worthy of notice that, in this project, "production is collaborative and voluntary from makers with 3D printers, health professionals, researchers, professors, students and collaborators from various fields" (Face…, 2020). By March 28, 2020, the project had gathered 49 makers and, with 93 3D printers, 1,091 face shields had been produced, based on the Prusa Protective Face Shield -RC3 model (Face…, 2020 In the Southeast, another group that has been working with additive manufacturing and laser cutting is the "SOS 3D COVID-19", a collective formed by "students, professors, entrepreneurs, managers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers from UFRJ and PUC-Rio" (SOS ..., 2020a). The objective of this group is "to help protect the medical teams of public and private hospitals", with "all the money and supplies collected being used exclusively for the donation" of products for these hospitals (SOS..., 2020b).
In the state of Minas Gerais, for example, in Uberlândia, the group "Juntos por Uberlândia" consists of companies, entities, public authorities and the community in general, which intend to "contribute to the improvement of conditions to fight coronavirus" (Juntos…, 2020). In Belo Horizonte, emerged the movement "Trem Maker Contra o COVID-19", comprised of "engineers, designers, advertisers, programmers, doctors, digital manufacturing specialists" (Trem…, 2020). This "community of innovation labs" (Gonzaga, 2020) has made available, in their website, the files and a tutorial kit for the manufacture of face shields using 3D printers.
In São Paulo, the Project Hígia, linked to the group "Women in 3D printing Brazil", is "formed by 130 women from various cities that work with 3D printing in research, product development and as a hobby". This group has also been manufacturing face shields, with the Similarly, in the South region, the group "Atitude 3D" was assembled. They are a group of volunteers from Curitiba who produce face shields for doctors, nurses and other health professionals (Protetores…, 2020). Also in the state of Paraná, other digital manufacturing labs from universities have been producing this kind of equipment and state and local governments are engaged with startups and other entities that work with 3D printing (Sabardelotto, 2020).
In the state of Rio Grande do Sul, there are also digital manufacturing laboratories at the university collaborating with the group "Brothers in Arms", created by the "Pacto Alegre" movement. This movement aims to bring together "arm forces in favor of innovation for created, which is a network of volunteers "consisting of makers, professors, students, entrepreneurs and healthcare and technology professionals, among others" (Rede…, 2020).
In addition, in the Federal District, the "Movimento Brasília Maior que COVID-19" movement emerged as an independent group comprised of many volunteers from different backgrounds (Rios, 2020).  As demonstrated, the initiatives presented in this paper are spread across the regions of In total approximately 1 million face shields have already been manufactured and distributed in Brazil. In addition to these groups presented in this article, there are several others. Protege BR (2020), a support network for health professionals against COVID-19, on July 27, 2020, accounted for 119 Brazilian initiatives that provided data on their donations, totaling 951,831 face shields.

DISCUSSION
When It can be noted that those kinds of networks were developed throughout the country.
According to Vasconcelos (2020), "this production and articulation has been made at national level because, with the spread of COVID-19, even the developed countries are unable to cope with the amount of PPE required and do not have logistics to meet the demand". Even though 3D printers, especially the elementary ones, were not designed for large-scale production, a considerable number of face shields have been produced since March 2020. It is worthy of notice that the production and distribution on a larger scale is related to the organization of networks themselves, which connect volunteers in different parts of the country.
Regarding the territorial spatialization of digital manufacturing networks that have been acting in the production of face shields, it is relevant to note that, although leaderships or group management may be situated at a specific spatiality, sometimes the networks expand to different locations and regions. Therefore, they are able to cross spatial boundaries due to the fact that they are organized around digital media and, although producing physical material, connections are digital. Consequently, these networks are based on dynamics that flow between local and global, concrete and digital.
It is worth mentioning that this way of organization is fully compatible with the guidelines and recommendations of social distancing and/or isolation, required and recommended by health authorities around the world. Since social distancing has been implemented as a health policy to flatten the curve of coronavirus pandemic in Brazil, the internet has become the major environment to support collectives of digital manufacture, who use social networks, apps, websites, mailing lists, among others, for communication and organization of their actions. Therefore, each maker, preserving social distancing, can make a contribution without having to gather in large agglomerations or in traditional factory spaces. This form of organization also overcomes the limitations of traditional production and distribution logistics centralized in large industries located at established points in the territory.
These networks structure and management follow an emerging logic, that is, they are bottom-up processes. In this way of management, there are no head managers to fully establish and plan all stages or to control production. In these networks, each volunteer assumes the role of a self-manager, not being obliged to meet productivity goals or act strictly within the parameters of a central administration. Instead there is a productive process strongly stimulated by ideological issues that involve social engagement fueled by a sense of community, empathy and solidarity, characteristics valued by contemporary design practices and the post-Fordist production method.
It is relevant to point out that, in general, networks of face shields manufacture, adopt a hybrid model of the different sectors of society, in non-hierarchical structures: (1) first sector: State; (2) second sector: private initiative; and (3) third sector: non-profit and nongovernmental organizations. On a recurring basis, there are partnerships between public and private agencies, either to make production viable or to receive donated products.
Regarding the inquiry for the demand of face shields, the following dynamics were repeatedly observed: (1) some networks are created to meet a specific demand, previously identified, such as the demand of a hospital linked to a given institution, who is also part of the network; (2) some demand surveys are applied by digital forms, which can be filled in by different enterprises and institutions, within a certain spatiality or, else, located anywhere in the country. Similarly, to demands identification dynamics, the recruitment of volunteers and participants is also organized (1) based on their direct links with existing networks or institutions that foster the creation of a network or (2)  In relation to the design of face shields, the Prusa Protective Face Shield, developed by the Czech company Prusa Research, has served as an inspiration and is the model adopted by digital manufacturing networks in Brazil. This model of face shield, which has been widely used around the world, has been validated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and can be downloaded free of charge, since it is an open source project (Vasconcelos, 2020). In Brazil, the manufacture of such equipment without control by the National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) is "exceptionally and temporarily" permitted, "due to the public health emergency" (Brasil, 2020c).

5.FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
As we tried to demonstrate, the initiatives emerging in the scenario of the new coronavirus pandemic in Brazil, corroborating to others around the world, are based on contemporary design practices and are fully structured within the principles of the maker culture. It is relevant to recognize the articulating role of designers within the scope of transdisciplinary teams and within the engagement of independent makers, as well as the integration between universities or research centers and other sectors of society.
Summarily, considering the analytical categories adopted, it was verified that the networks and collectives: (a) are formed by groups that already exist or that emerged from social When analyzing the modus operandi of digital manufacturing networks in Brazil, partnerships between different sectors, the proposition of quick, technological, creative, innovative and sustainable responses are relevant to highlight, being the results of global thinking and local action strategies designated to solve new problems. Likewise, the sharing of information and, consequently, the democratization of knowledge (including design processes), collaborative work (mainly remote and decentralized), the hybridism between professionals and amateurs, between industrial production and the artisanal, are significant advances to respond to demands that more traditional production and distribution have not been able to meet yet.
Finally, the experiences mentioned in this article, considering the underlying logic in the development of social mobilization networks for the manufacture of face shields, reveal the potential for an open, distributed and resilient design that can be used to propose disruptive solutions for the present and future problems faced by contemporary society. They also shed light on new possibilities of contemplation in the field of Design itself, which, although often invisible, will continue to be an essential activity, especially to help (re)design a postpandemic world.