During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we, like many, applied our engineering skilsl to builld ventilators.

Our unique take on the problem was to restrict ourselves to only use materials that could easily be sourced anywhere in the world, and to open-source our designs so anyone could build them. We build our design around an Ambu manual insufflator, and used a car windshield wiper motor and plywood and drawer slides from a local hardware store. For control, we used a low-cost Arduino microcontroller.

The whole lab pulled together with some other Vanderbilt faculty and students, and within three weeks we went from napkin sketch to a complete design, tested in animals. A couple weeks after that we had built 100 total units and were ready to help if local hospitals had run out of ventilators. See video above and paper below for more information.

Selected Related Publications:

1. J. Gafford, K. Galloway, S. Webster, M. Emerson, K. Riojas, D. Ropella, A. Tumen, F. Maldonado, M. Bacchetta, E. Barth, S. D. Herrell, and R. J. Webster III. The Vanderbilt Open-Source Ventilator: From Napkin Sketch to Ready to Save Lives in 3 Weeks. IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, 28(1):101-114, 2021.