It is hard to describe how hectic the past days have been. To people whose phone calls, messages or emails we have not answered, we apologise. We have been organising the project, and set up team leads for the relevant subsections. This is new terrain for me & Jonathan and it is a very steep learning curve.
We have grown from 8 people trying a far-out concept in 4 days, to 60 people after another 4.
It is now only 12 days after the moment when some idiot suggested we should just build & test this thing and see if it could work instead of talking about it.
We have been working with 30+ people in the lab the past days, with another 30 working from home on Slack.
I have been trying to take some video and snapshots on quieter moments:
If you want to get a better idea what it is like here, here are some images & video’s:
Sensor-based motor control is working, data monitoring is working, breathing detection is working, control panel is finished. PCB designs are at the manufacturer for a small prototyping run.
We have been receiving massive support from industry and university.
Four days ago we decided to switch from stepper motors to DC windscreen wiper motors, after testing different motor concepts. Three days ago Jonathan sent one email asking where we could get some the same day.
This is yesterday (Nemo, team lead component sourcing)
We got motors donated for testing by Mazda, Ford, Audi, Volvo, Renault and Mercedes.
Volvo Trucks let us know “We ‘ll send 2 motors over with a taxi” and 3 hours later this package got dropped off:
Volvo Trucks for the win…
Eurocircuits is rushing our prototype PCB’s for free.
We ordered 150 kg aluminium from Dejond, with the request if we could pick it up the same day and explained why we needed them urgently and got an invoice for 0 euro in our mailbox….
Five people from Flanders Make are working full-time to help us roll out the first series as soon as possible. Technically, sooner than possible, since we will de facto be beta-testing while production starts.
FAGG published a shortened certification document for (temporary) use of emergency ventilators in Belgium. So there is now regulation that allows for the use of the kind of machine we are developing.
Lastly, a big thank you to all the friends and colleagues who are helping out from home and sacrificing some of their time, without seeing what’s going on and being in the middle of it. Thank you
Be safe, Lieven
