University employee designs ventilator at fraction of usual cost
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Omaha (WOWT) — There has been a large amount of coverage about the supply of working ventilators during the pandemic.
A Creighton University employee thought about it one sleepless night – and decided to do something about it.
Max McCoy, a web developer at CU, is designing a ventilator at home. Taking a few hours each night after his son is asleep to improve his design.
“I can’t stand the thought that if I did nothing it resulted in more people dying,” he said.
McCoy is the kind of person who feels called to action when tragedy strikes. Early on in the pandemic, it weighed on him that he might not be doing enough to help.
“I was having a hard time sleeping at night because I felt like I wasn’t doing enough to help what was going on in the world,” he said.
A web developer for Creighton university by day, his hobby is programming robots. In the near future, his hobby could be saving lives.
“I wanted to make it accessible and buildable by basically anybody who needed access to eventually,” he said.
His design uses everyday items like air mattress inflators.
“A ventilator is complex. I mean, it’s complex but really all it’s doing is pushing and pulling air,” he said.
He’ll need approved equipment to actually produce medical-grade ventilators but he’s hoping to prove that these pieces of machinery can be built at a fraction of the price.
His would come with a price tag of a couple of hundred bucks compared to tens of thousands.
“I think it’s close to being released — at least the designs are,” he said.
McCoy isn’t sure what he’s going to do once he’s finished.
There’s a competition for ventilator designs out of Canada that’s offering hundreds of thousands of dollars for a more economic design.
But he’s not doing this for the money.
“I think at the end of the day, I’m just going to release the programming in the design as an open-source project for people to contribute to and make better,” he said.
For McCoy, this pandemic has shown him a problem — and he’s refusing to stand by without trying to find a solution.
McCoy has built all his prototypes in his home using equipment he can get off Amazon and using his 3D printer. He says he would love to shop locally but is trying to respect the rule to stay home.
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