Smith College team from Massachusetts wins CoVent-19 Challenge

On April 1, anesthesiology resident physicians from Massachusetts General Hospital launched a public challenge to design a rapidly deployable, minimum viable ventilator that could address shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. 3 months and over 200 submissions later, a team of engineering alumnae, staff, and faculty from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, took a winning design from concept through working prototype. The next step could be a final product for regulatory approval in Nigeria.

The 30-person Smith College team collaborated on a simplified, cost-effective, easily manufactured pneumatic design particularly tailored to COVID-19 patient needs. The SmithVent design – 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. 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.

“We came into this not knowing anything about ventilators,” says Susannah Howe, engineering professor at Smith College. “In two months we went from knowing nothing to having a functional prototype. 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, heartwarming, and so rewarding.”

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Two other teams were also recognized by the CoVent-19 Challenge judges. The second-place InVent Pneumatic Ventilator was submitted by a San Francisco-based team comprised of design and innovation firm fuseproject and medical device technology startup Cionic. The InVent prototype is a pneumatically driven ventilator optimized for COVID-19 healthcare that can be assembled in under four hours. The prototype used 3D printing technology from Stratasys and featured a simple and intuitive human-machine interface and custom rapid-manufactured venturi flow sensors. A multi-ventilator tablet display encourages patient distancing.

The third-place prototype, RespiraWorks, was developed by a global team of engineers, healthcare workers, and other professionals and brings a focus on developing countries and low-resource communities. The model uses a sophisticated blower-based ventilation system, simplified assembly and manufacturing, and high-quality, open-source software. Parts are designed to be available from local supply chains around the world. “Patients suffering from COVID-19 require and deserve high-quality ventilation, regardless of whether they were born in a rich country or a poor one,” says Ethan Chaleff, founder and executive director of RespiraWorks.

When planning for the challenge began in March, it was unclear if there would be enough ventilators 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 this new disease,” says Dr. Richard Boyer, founder and director of the CoVent-19 Challenge. “The test bed we developed gives us a lot of confidence in the performance of the winning prototype, and there is tremendous value in getting other finalist designs out into the world too.”

Seven finalist prototypes were evaluated using a test bed to determine which design provides the best combination performance for safety, reliability, manufacturability, affordability, and simplicity.

The three winners will receive a total of $10,000 in credits for 3D printing from Stratasys, which also provided access to free 3D printing and a team of three application engineers for the seven finalist teams building their working prototypes. In addition, the challenge was hosted on the Stratasys GrabCAD community.