Dr. Hwang (left) with just part of a delivery of 3D printed PPEs to Keck Medicine of USC.
“Calling all 3D printers! Message me if you can help, we’re going to try to make as many of these masks as possible.”
On March 24, 2020, Daryl H. Hwang, PhD, biomedical engineer and Director of the 4D Quantitative Imaging Lab at Keck Medicine of USC posted this call to his personal Facebook page, and the members of CRASH Space answered.
CRASH Space, or the Collaborative Research Association of Social Hacktivity, is a nonprofit comprised of volunteer engineers, programmers, builders, scientists, teachers and artists. Since its founding in 2009, CRASH has promoted accessibility in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics by teaching hundreds of classes, doing outreach at public events, providing online resources, and running workshops. Located in Culver City, CRASH Space’s physical location is something between a clubhouse and the Batcave—and when the national crisis arose, it became a think tank and headquarters for community organizing around “crashing” COVID-19.
“We were all stuck at home looking for ways to help, and knew our community had the know-how and capabilities to make a real impact at local hospitals,” said Ben Sax, the artist and social entrepreneur leading the effort. “The key was getting organized and responding to actual needs.”
The leadership team also included a number of USC Trojans: CRASH’s board chair Theron Trowbridge BA ’91, board secretary Ariel Levi Simons PhD Candidate ’20, Camille Kanengiser BA ’15, Andrew R. Gross MS ’14, and Zeve Akerling MS ’15.
CRASH rapidly transformed itself into a highly coordinated personal protective equipment (PPE) production effort, developing a complex logistical delivery system even as they tinkered with and improved designs to meet the specific needs of Dr. Hwang’s team. From an initial delivery of 25 masks to Keck Medicine of USC, the effort has grown to involve more than 200 volunteers, in and out of Los Angeles, and, as of this writing, more than 18,000 pieces of PPE donated to not only USC, but to several other non-profit hospitals and organizations.