Highlights

In March 2020, a team of U.K. volunteers created an open-source ventilator design, the OpenVent-Bristol project. Soon afterward, a team of U.S. volunteers found that design and began working on it. And so, the Offset Ventilator project, incubated under Helpful Engineering, was born. In recent weeks, these teams have come together to work on the ventilator, under the name OpenVent-Bristol.

Dr. Songer is the founder of MakerMask, an organization that researches reusable mask designs and materials in order to inform and unite a global community of local mask makers.

Volunteers were inspired by how the Apollo-13 crew overcame potential catastrophic failure of an oxygen tank. Responding to the challenge of Covid-19, anyone can build this oxygen concentrator design at home as a life-saving device with commonly available materials.

The highly-anticipated web app for Reach4Help, a project that aims to facilitate support requests for identified people in need through verified volunteers, has finally launched.

Project Data has two parallel projects. First, solve the COVID-19 related shortage of medical supplies and PPE. Second, provide a long-term solution to ongoing issues in the global supply chain for this equipment. The team built a location-specific prediction modeling system for supplies that are needed at any given time. Ultimately, they hope that the system will allow supplies to be continuously manufactured and distributed as needed to prevent future shortages.

From its humble beginnings of a lifelong backpacker realizing the need for better DIY mask instructions in the new age of COVID-19, MakerMask provides a trusted voice for science on mask materials, designs, and use.