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As a mechanical engineering student decades ago, , Ph.D., helped respiratory therapist colleagues build a minimal-transport ventilator that became a commercial success. So, when the coronavirus pandemic hit and he heard the desperate international plea for thousands more ventilators, the longtime UF professor of set out to build a prototype using plentiful, cheap components that could be copied from an online diagram and a software repository.

Lampotang dispatched David Lizdas, Ph.D., the lead engineer in his lab, to Home Depot to gather items such as air-tight PVC water pipes and lawn-sprinkler valves. Along with engineering and medical colleagues at UF and 鈥� through a burgeoning open-source network 鈥� places as far-flung as Canada, India, Ireland, Vietnam and Brazil, they raced to 鈥淢acGyver鈥� these items and other pieces, including a microcontroller board and a ham radio DC power supply, into an open-source ventilator they expect to make publicly available in a matter of days.

鈥淭he way I looked at it is, if you鈥檙e going to run out of ventilators, then we鈥檙e not even trying to reproduce the sophisticated ventilators out there,鈥� said Lampotang, the Joachim S. Gravenstein Professor of Anesthesiology in the , part of , and the director of , or CSSALT. 鈥淚f we run out, you have to decide who gets one and who doesn鈥檛. How do you decide that? The power of our approach is that every well-intentioned volunteer who has access to Home Depot, Ace or Lowe鈥檚 or their equivalent worldwide can build one.鈥�

Lampotang, an inventor with 43 patents belonging to UF, will not try to patent the ventilator, he said. Rather, with UF鈥檚 approval, he will provide it 鈥渙pen source鈥� for engineers and hobbyists worldwide as the number of critically ill coronavirus victims continues to climb. His team is working on adding safety features to meet regulatory guidelines and then they will run engineering tests to determine safety, accuracy and endurance of the machine, which can be built for as little as $125 to $250.

Gordon Gibby, M.D., said when his friend and former colleague Lampotang contacted him to help, he was a little skeptical. But then Lizdas used the Home Depot materials to assemble a pneumatic circuit, which Lampotang reviewed via FaceTime to confirm that the design concept 鈥� similar to the one he helped build decades before 鈥� would indeed work. Lizdas, working in his garage, made a video that was uploaded the same night to the website of UF鈥檚 department of anesthesiology, where Lampotang and Lizdas are based.

鈥淚 saw what they were doing, and realized it was going to work!!!!鈥� Gibby wrote in an email to fellow members of ARRL, the national amateur radio (known as Ham radio) association.

Gibby, a recently retired associate professor of anesthesiology at UF and an electrical engineer, grabbed an Arduino microcontroller board, the kind used to build small robots or for a student to learn to program. Lizdas raced over to his house and dropped off a sprinkler valve in Gibby鈥檚 mailbox. Gibby fired up his soldering iron and built a transistor driver that could handle the current supplied by a Ham radio DC power supply.

Eight hours later, Gibby said, two drivers were built, code was created and tested and they had a working ventilator driving a 鈥渢est lung鈥� metal contraption from an air compressor that served as a simulated oxygen source. They were able to adjust the respiratory rate with the Arduino-based control software. A video of the ventilator working on Gibby鈥檚 dining room table was also quickly uploaded. Now, they are working on other key parameters, he said.

The ventilator鈥檚 valves will precisely time the flow of compressed oxygen into a patient with lungs weakened by viral pneumonia in order to extend life and allow time for the body to clear the infection.

鈥淚t was really easy for me to write the code to prove this thing鈥檚 going to work,鈥� Gibby said.

Volunteers who jumped to help included , M.D., who prodded Lampotang to act on his idea; the CSSALT team; code developer Marcelo Varanda in Ottawa (motivated to build ventilators for Canada and Brazil); Gibby鈥檚 network, including noted software developer Jack Purdum and transceiver maker Ashhar Farhan of India; and Stephanie Lampotang, Lampotang鈥檚 daughter, a University of Southern California computer science junior who evacuated to Gainesville with two of her own Arduino boards in her luggage.

Lampotang and others are working with UF Innovate | Tech Licensing and the 网红黑料 legal team to address legal aspects as the design advances and the FDA alters guidance documents for equipment cleared for use solely during the pandemic.

Already, they鈥檝e translated their site into French, and a volunteer is translating it into Italian.

鈥淲e want to reach the whole world, and The Gator Nation,鈥� Lampotang said. 鈥淲e have UF graduates from all over the world. There鈥檚 already a network of people who can contribute in disseminating the technology if it鈥檚 needed in the next few weeks.鈥�

Once the safety features are added, other researchers at will help run tests to measure and document the safety and durability and whether the accuracy and repeatability meet engineering specifications, Lampotang said.

Nonetheless, he said, his wish is that the ventilator won鈥檛 be needed during the coronavirus pandemic.

鈥淲hen all this comes to pass and the world settles down,鈥� he said, 鈥渨e hope it will be repurposed for use in underdeveloped countries, so they can build a safe and inexpensive ventilator for themselves.鈥�

If you鈥檙e Interested in contributing to the success of these efforts, please consider giving to the .