Facemasks are essential product that are needed to sustain our lives equal to food and water because it is the first line of defense against respiratory diseases like COVID-19 by providing a filtration system of the air we breathe preventing us from getting infected and transmitting our infectious virus. But using this product comes with many problems which includes:
- Physical discomfort with use, particularly in hot and humid environments.
- Contact dermatitis with extended wear.
- Inability to effectively communicate with others using facial expressions.
- Speech intelligibility.
- Fogging of eyeglasses during use.
- Difficulty finding a device that is the proper size and many others.
This project is about building a mouth guard face mask that covers only the mouth and nose of the user and use the teeth as a support structure. Anteneh’s mask has a one side mouth guard that is mounted only at the bottom part of the teeth just like a brace for anchor to provide support structure of the product. Attached to the front part of the mouth guard, there is hallow cylindrical structure that is used for air entrance and exit for mouth breathing. At the front part of the hallow cylinder there is a curved flat structure that act as a cover for the lips and the area around the lips to provide cover protection from air entering and exiting except through the hallow cylindrical structure while breathing. At the top of the curved flat structure there are two closely fixed cylindrical hallow structures that are used for breathing through the nose. These two hallow cylinders are inserted in to the nose of the user. This will enables the user breath only through the three holes. The three holes have detachable small air filters made from the standard surgical masks. These air filters have structures that made to be perfectly fit the device. All the user needs to do it switch the filters on regular basis.
- This will be very efficient because no air will enter in to the mouth and nose except the holes that are design for filtration only.
- It also solves the discomfort generated by face masks in hot and humid environment.
- There will not be any contact dermatitis from extended mask wear
- There will not be any problem on communication through facial expression because this mask only covers small part of your face
- While wearing the mouth guard that is only attached to the lower part of the teeth just like a brace, you will not have any problem talking because your lips are free and there is no sound barrier all over your face.
- There will be any fogging of eyeglasses during use because the exhaling air will not be directed in to the eye glasses.
- There will not be any problem concerning the device size because it will be made in different models according to our general structures that are used to classify our body.
https://hackaday.io/project/178952-antenehs-mask
https://solve.mit.edu/challenges/2021-health-security-pandemics/solutions/41551
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ABOUT THE ENTRANT
- Name:Anteneh Gashaw
- Type of entry:individual
- Software used for this entry:Catia V5
- Patent status:pending