We are pleased to thank the Mozilla Open Source Support Foundation for a generous grant of $20,000 specifically to make and give away the VentMon free-of-charge. The VentMon is one of our most active projects in the fight against COVID-19.
The VentMon is a device for measuring pressure, flow, oxygen, temperature and humidity produced by a ventilator. Although someday it may grow into a device used for monitoring patients, the present versions are only for testing pandemic ventilators—which is a pressing need. We have given away ten of these to worthy teams around the world that are involved in designing either ventilators, oxygen concentrators, or related equipment. Since the bag of parts for the device is about $300, this would have been difficult for us without this grant. At the project page on our website, teams can find a form to request a VentMon; we are currently building the next run of another 10. Like everything Public Invention does, the project is fully open-source so anyone can build their own and modify the design. Similar equipment can be purchased for about USD$900, so, in combination with a public data lake and software we have produced, we may have provided a significant benefit to several teams.
In addition to parts, the money has been used to purchase other test equipment and parts that we evaluated and then didn’t use—such as paying for 3D printing of flow sensors designed by other teams. We intend to continue giving away VentMons until we run out of money or the need passes.