Virtual Salon: Open Source and 3D-Printable Medical Equipment Meet Global Shortages
Channel: Engineering for Change
Date: 2020-05-29

Engineers are responding to global supply shortages by crafting open-source and 3D-printable designs for medical equipment. Engineering for Change’s Virtual Salon convened experts who are developing projects such as 3D-printable faceshields with US regulatory approval and a ventilator rescued from a museum as a low-cost device that can be built from available parts. Khanjan Mehta at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (USA) moderated this webinar with Brian Slocum at Lehigh’s Design Labs and Wilbur Powerhouse Makerspace, Elizabeth Johansen at Spark Health Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA) and Design that Matters in Redmond, Washington (USA), Dr. Erin Keaney at Nonspec in Lowell, Massachusetts (USA) and Koramangala, Bangalore (India), and Gerwin Smit at Delft University of Technology in Delft (Netherlands).

Watch this E4C Virtual Salon to learn:
– Overviews of the development of open source designs, including methods and test data
– How to obtain plans for equipment designed for distributed manufacture
– How universities are responding to COVID-19 to better support students
– How communities living with constrained resources can gain access to technologies that will help during an outbreak

During the event, each panelist provided a brief overview of their work. This was followed by a live (virtual) question-and-answer session lead by the moderator.