本文摘译自medical design and outsourcing

2020年7月1日 以下为详文

Smith学院工程系团队设计了一种快速展开式呼吸机，以解决特别是在发展中国家COVID-19流行病所造成的呼吸机短缺问题，从而赢得了CoVent-19挑战赛。

4月1日，来自马萨诸塞州总医院的十几个麻醉住院医师启动公开挑战赛，吸引了200名参赛者。来自马萨诸塞州北安普敦学院的30人团队，从设计概念到工作样机获得完胜。下一步可能是尼日利亚监管审批的最终产品，尼日利亚是一直与CoVent-19挑战赛组织者保持洽谈的国家之一。

根据大赛主办方介绍，SmithVent的设计成本是传统呼吸机的十分之一，该设计将经济的比例电磁阀技术与空气氧气混合室相结合，来满足新冠病毒防疫通风换气的所有要求。该团队主要依靠便捷可用的现成组件，减少定制加工，改善与其他医疗设备的兼容性。外壳、ISO配件和安装块可使用FDM或立体光刻3D打印机生产。这个设计是开源的，任何人都可以使用和改进。

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排在第二名的是来自旧金山的fuseproject团队提交的InVent气动呼吸机。该团队由瑞士设计师Yves Behar和Cionic创立的创新设计公司和医疗设备技术初创公司组成。排在第三名的是由几十名工程师、医护人员和其他专业人士组成的全球团队开发的呼吸系统样机，该样机重点服务对象是发展中国家和低资源社区。

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CoVent-19挑战赛的创始人和主任Richard Boyer博士说，他们三月份开始作计划，当时尚不清楚美国是否有足够等量的呼吸机来治疗大流行性疾病患者。

他说：“此后，我们的重点转向了发展中国家，在那里，我们看到，有限的资源对付着这种新疾病的肆虐和所产生的高死亡率”“我们开发的试验台让我们对获奖样机的性能有了很大的信心，坦率地说，让其他最终入围的设计走向世界可能也有巨大的价值。”

原文：

Smith College team wins ventilator design challenge

July 1, 2020 By Nancy Crotti Leave a Comment

A team of Smith College engineering alumnae, staff and faculty has won the CoVent-19 Challenge to design a rapidly deployable ventilator to address shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in developing countries.

A dozen anesthesiology resident physicians from Massachusetts General Hospital kicked off the public challenge April 1, attracting 200 entries. The 30-person team from the Northampton, Mass., college took a winning design from concept through working prototype. The next step could be a final product for regulatory approval in Nigeria, one of the countries that have been talking with the CoVent-19 Challenge organizers.

The SmithVent design, which is one-tenth the cost of traditional ventilators, combines economical proportional solenoid valve technology with an air-oxygen mixing chamber to meet the full set of requirements for COVID-19 ventilation, according to the contest organizers. The team relied primarily on readily available, off-the-shelf components, which reduced custom machining and improved compatibility with other medical equipment. The enclosure, ISO fittings and mounting blocks can be produced using FDM or stereolithography 3D printers. The design is open source for anyone to use and improve.

The timeline was intense, according to Smith College engineering professor Susannah Howe.

“To a person, we came into this not knowing anything about ventilators,” she said in a news release. “In two months we went from knowing nothing to having a functional prototype. That’s just crazy. To see that trajectory in such a short period of time, with people who are volunteering their time on top of their other jobs is amazing and heartwarming and so rewarding.”

Second place went to the InVent Pneumatic Ventilator submitted by a San Francisco-based team comprised of fuseproject, a design and innovation firm founded by Swiss designer Yves Behar, and Cionic, a medical device technology start-up. The third-place prototype, RespiraWorks, was developed by a global team of dozens of engineers, healthcare workers and other professionals with a focus on developing countries and low-resource communities.

Dr. Richard Boyer, founder and director of the CoVent-19 Challenge, said when they began planning in March, it was unclear if there would be enough ventilators even in the United States to treat pandemic patients.

“Our focus has since shifted to developing countries, where we’re seeing high death rates and limited resources to deal with the ravages of this new disease,” he said. “The test bed we developed gives us a lot of confidence in the performance of the winning prototype, and frankly there is probably tremendous value in getting other finalist designs out into the world too.”

The three winners will receive a total of $10,000 in credits for 3D printing from Stratasys (NSDQ:SSYS), which also provided access to free 3D printing and a team of three application engineers for the seven finalist teams building their working prototypes. Other sponsors include Ximedica, Valispace, HackFund and Yelling Mule.