Hi, I'm Dan, an American. I'm no great engineer, but I'm one heck of a planner and people organizer. I've been involved in Emergency Medicine for 19 years as an Army 68 Whiskey, Tactical Medic/TC3, EMT-Advanced; 3 years serving and leading in combat (I also have an Anesthetist who can advise on ventilator technicals). I don't have the skill to build a ventilator by myself, none of us do. But this eevBlog community does. Personally, I like great challenges, hard work, and the Apollo 13 story gives me wood.
Engineering wood.The situation:
1st World countries like the US, Australia, the UK, France, Germany, etc are probably going to be OK on ventilators. However, the developing world, India, Brazil, etc, could see severe shortages, and utter devastation.
I've searched hi and lo, looking for a ventilator project that has promise, but I haven't found anything that goes past raw concepts, or idealism w/o necessary skill. I can promise you there will be none of that here -- we'll hit of our marks.
If you're interested in this undertaking, vote in the poll -- it's an aggressive project for strong-spirited individuals, it's not for everyone, even though everyone can contribute. I've set a time limit of 24 hours on the poll, feel free to comment below with your hard technical skills and an intro. If 20 people join, we'll quickly form the steering and planning committees and move forward with answering the first critical question:
Does a fully operational open source ventilator already exist w/ a suitable BOM for the developing world?motivation here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6F6MzMT2g8