The Barrier for Outside Outpatient Testing of Heath (BOOTH) is a structure designed at Penn State by a multidisciplinary team involving faculty, staff, and students from the College of Arts and Architecture and the College of Engineering, all working within the context of the university-wide MASC project.
The goal of this transportable structure is to facilitate COVID-19 testing while avoiding the use of disposable Personal Protection Equipment (PPE: masks, goggles, and gloves), which are expected to be in short supply during the peak of the pandemic in the United States. BOOTH can protect medical personnel and patients alike, preventing the spread of the virus.
The unit can host a nurse standing in the interior who can then test people standing outside, using large medical-grade gloves which can be sanitized after each test. The unit is pressurized to avoid contamination of the interior, equipped with an intercom to facilitate communication, and has two heavy-duty wheels facilitate deployment.
The unit was designed with prioritization given to common or off-the-shelf easy-to-assemble parts. The idea is that the design, parts list, and assembly instructions are open source and can be downloaded by anyone who can, in turn, order the parts from online vendors and then assemble them with minimal tools. Alternatively, the unit can be produced by a company and shipped flat along with assembly instructions.
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José Pinto Duarte
- Director, Stuckeman Center for Design Computing
- Stuckeman Chair in Design Innovation
