{"id":5556,"date":"2020-10-06T13:40:19","date_gmt":"2020-10-06T18:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=5556"},"modified":"2020-10-06T13:40:19","modified_gmt":"2020-10-06T18:40:19","slug":"made-at-uw-stout-door-pullers-part-of-student-health-push","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/made-at-uw-stout-door-pullers-part-of-student-health-push\/","title":{"rendered":"Made at UW-Stout door pullers part of student health push"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Two seniors\u2019 engineering skills lead to special welcome gift in residence halls.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At UW-Stout this fall, dozens of COVID-19 safety measures \u2014 from new plexiglass barriers to surface disinfection protocols to socially-distanced classrooms and lounges \u2014 have been planned and implemented to help keep everyone healthy.<\/p>\n

The university\u2019s commitment also includes something out of the ordinary, a narrow, molded plastic tool distributed in welcome packs to residence hall students. Simple as it looks, it has a sort of superpower.<\/p>\n

The device is a hand-held door puller, designed to hook handles and open doors in classroom buildings, residence halls and more, meaning that students can use it to greatly reduce the number of times each day that they touch commonly used surfaces.<\/p>\n

For this small but powerful \u2014 even life-saving \u2014 piece of engineering, students can largely credit two of their peers, fellow students Jake Thomas and Deven McCarty.<\/p>\n

\"Jake<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy I can make a difference, put my engineering knowledge to use and make students\u2019 lives a little better,\u201d said Thomas, the inventor, a senior\u00a0engineering technology<\/a>\u00a0major from Northfield, Minn.<\/p>\n

Thomas made a door puller early this summer at home on a 3D printer. It came at the request of his father, who works in technology for a Minnesota school district. Once word got out at UW-Stout, where Thomas works as an Admissions tour guide, the idea took off.<\/p>\n

Soon, there will be 3,000 of Thomas\u2019 door pullers on campus. \u201cIt\u2019s wild that this all started in my bedroom,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

McCarty is a senior\u00a0plastics engineering<\/a>\u00a0major who refined the design for production in the university\u2019s\u00a0plastics lab<\/a>\u00a0in Jarvis Hall Tech Wing. \u201cWhatever I can do big or small to hopefully see this virus go away is a win in my eyes,\u201d said McCarty, from Dyckesville, northeast of Green Bay.<\/p>\n

Along with student know-how, the project benefited from several of the plastics engineering program\u2019s industry partners:<\/p>\n