DANIELLE HENDRIX ASSOCIATE EDITOR
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Courtesy photo
Mason based his own ear-saver design on those he saw others making. He tweaked his files to make the design sturdier and thicker.
Ears to you For his Bar Mitzvah project, Glenridge Middle School sixth-grader Mason Moses is 3D-printing and collecting ear savers and other protective gear to help with the COVID-19 pandemic.
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BALDWIN PARK LIVING | JUNE 2020
ith his 13th birthday just a few months away, Glenridge Middle sixth-grader Mason Moses has been preparing for his bar mitzvah. For the Jewish coming-of-age ritual for boys, many synagogues require a bar mitzvah student to do a social-action project, often known as a “mitzvah project,” as part of their preparations. For tech-savvy Mason, the idea for his mitzvah project came to him during the coronavirus pandemic. He received a 3D printer for Hanukkah in 2018, and he decided to use it to make 3D-printed personal protective equipment for those who need it — specifically ear savers. “I wanted to do something with my 3D printer, because it’s really fun to use and stuff, and at first I tried to print these masks,” Mason says. “The masks were a big problem, because it took like six hours to print, and after five-and-a-half hours, they’ll fall over, and then you don’t have a mask. … A week after I started really printing them and trying to get them to work really well, then there were a lot of articles that say they give a false sense of security and they’re not really actually safe.” Weighing the logistic difficulties of 3D-printed face masks with the articles he read, Mason decided to shift his attention. He learned about face shields, which he wanted to do but couldn’t — he didn’t have any transparency sheets nor immediate access to them. That is when he found the concept of ear savers — pieces of plastic or fabric with latches or hooks. They make mask sizing more flexible and remove pressure and friction from the ears. “I was with one of my friends who lives in the neighborhood, and his dad works at one of the hospitals and he does radiology,” Mason says. “His dad was saying that his ears were getting really raw at the end of the work day, because they have to wear (masks) all day now and not just when they’re seeing patients.” But what he discovered after looking at some of the ear-saver designs available online was that many
