B.C. engineering students have developed a simple, low-cost COVID-19 ventilator that may very well save lives. Their design—built around a modified BiPAP machine—is among the final 10 in the Code Life Ventilator Challenge, an international competition that has attracted more than 1,000 teams from 94 participating countries.
The competition, hosted by the Montreal General Hospital Foundation and McGill University Health Centre, invited participants to design a ventilator that can be manufactured easily anywhere in the world and adheres to compliance specifications. Final results will be announced by the end of the week.
The team, which calls itself FlowO2, came up with the idea of customizing the BiPAP machine, which has been used for years to treat sleep apnea.
“Instead of building a ventilator from the ground up, we decided to use the BiPAP machine because it’s already approved for medical applications and people know how it works,” explains team member Laura Stankiewicz. “This allowed us to focus our efforts on writing the special software needed and securing additional parts—which are easily sourced from hardware stores or online suppliers—that would turn it into a potential life support tool for people with COVID-19.”
“Where conventional ventilators cost from $25,000 to $50,000, our invention should cost only a few thousand dollars to manufacture—and most of that is from the cost of the BiPAP machine,” says team member Nico Werschler.
The ventilator was assessed on members of the team and a test lung at McGill University, producing what team member Adam Levschuk calls “very promising results.” It will soon be further evaluated at a simulation centre in Vancouver General Hospital and test lungs at TRIUMF.
“This is Canadian innovation at its best: aligning cutting-edge research capability with positive societal impact,” says Walter Merida, associate dean in the faculty of applied science. “The COVID-19 outbreak has had a significant impact on the economy, and the FlowO2 team exemplifies the type of leadership and talent that will be required to ensure Canada’s recovery.”
