The novel coronavirus may remain viable for hours to days on surfaces made from a variety of material. Public health officials suggest decreasing the amount of times we touch our face, especially after touching common surfaces such as doorknobs, aids in reducing disease transmission. Although we may not be able to control the amount of times people touch their face, we can certainly create tools that don’t require the touch of bare hands, in order to prevent disease transmission.
The overall goal of this project is to minimize the transmission of COVID-19 by providing immediate and long-term design and manufacturing solutions for simple, low-cost hands-free door handle products that can be used by the general public. The outcomes will be novel, user-friendly, low-cost hands-free brackets that can assemble onto doorknobs. The baseline models will be developed to a provide basis for a universal solution. The rapid tooling solution will reduce the mold development time, which will reduce the molding costs. Using alternative materials to those used in 3D printing solutions will reduce the material costs significantly.