General > General Technical Chat
What did we learn from the "open source ventilator" mess.......
Smokey:
Now that the dust has settled and it's not apparently trending anymore...
If you got caught up in the open source ventilator rush and spent any amount of time thinking about that problem seriously, try out these questions. It's never a total waste of time if you learned something.
1) Raise your hand if... You learned something about being way overconfident in your own functional skills.
2) Raise your hand if... You learned being a "maker" isn't the same as being an engineer.
3) Raise your hand if... You learned that the design of a life critical medical device is more complicated than you thought and deserves more respect than you thought.
4) Raise your hand if... You learned that knowing something about electronics or software does not imply you can design mechanical systems.
5) Raise your hand if... You learned that even if you have a functional design, that does not mean you can successfully manufacture a product.
6) Raise your hand if... You learned that always having 100% "open source" ideological purity isn't really that important and harping on it isn't always helpful.
7) Raise your hand if... After learning how silly the basic idea of open source community designed ventilators are, you volunteered delivering food to old folks in your community or some other useful activity.
It's one thing to have an engineering mindset and be curious about how things work and want to go through the exercise of learning how to do things for it's own sake. In that case, fine. Build yourself a ventilator in your garage. It's another thing entirely to take on the stance that you and your friends on the internet are seriously intending to do what the big companies can't and save the world by becoming functional in the cumulative understanding of a whole handful of distinct engineering careers in a matter of weeks in order to create a reliable life critical medical device for mass production and anyone who thinks that's crazy just needs to shut up and get out of your way. As it turns out, what we should have all been working on was "open source toilet paper". We would have been rich!
madires:
Can't you simply 3D print toilet paper? >:D
Smokey:
--- Quote from: madires on July 06, 2020, 12:45:50 pm ---Can't you simply 3D print toilet paper? >:D
--- End quote ---
Challenge accepted!
Psi:
I learnt that some people would rather die than be put on a ventilator which is not fully medically tested and certified. It kinda surprised me.
GlennSprigg:
--- Quote from: Smokey on July 06, 2020, 12:19:31 pm ---Now that the dust has settled and it's not apparently trending anymore...
If you got caught up in the open source ventilator rush and spent any amount of time thinking about that problem seriously, try out these questions. It's never a total waste of time if you learned something.
1) Raise your hand if... You learned something about being way overconfident in your own functional skills.
2) Raise your hand if... You learned being a "maker" isn't the same as being an engineer.
3) Raise your hand if... You learned that the design of a life critical medical device is more complicated than you thought and deserves more respect than you thought.
4) Raise your hand if... You learned that knowing something about electronics or software does not imply you can design mechanical systems.
5) Raise your hand if... You learned that even if you have a functional design, that does not mean you can successfully manufacture a product.
6) Raise your hand if... You learned that always having 100% "open source" ideological purity isn't really that important and harping on it isn't always helpful.
7) Raise your hand if... After learning how silly the basic idea of open source community designed ventilators are, you volunteered delivering food to old folks in your community or some other useful activity.
It's one thing to have an engineering mindset and be curious about how things work and want to go through the exercise of learning how to do things for it's own sake. In that case, fine. Build yourself a ventilator in your garage. It's another thing entirely to take on the stance that you and your friends on the internet are seriously intending to do what the big companies can't and save the world by becoming functional in the cumulative understanding of a whole handful of distinct engineering careers in a matter of weeks in order to create a reliable life critical medical device for mass production and anyone who thinks that's crazy just needs to shut up and get out of your way. As it turns out, what we should have all been working on was "open source toilet paper". We would have been rich!
--- End quote ---
I really DO understand what you are saying, mate. However, in times like these, we DO have to Bypass the
myriad of normal 'regulations' that authorities/nations would/should 'normally' impinge, on generic products
appearing on the market generally. It would be quite evident, very early on, which ones are a waste of time,
but there may be many others that may help, and make a difference, where immediate global production is
limited for many reasons. If it 'works', then just do/try it!! I wouldn't want the life of say my Father or Grand-
Father to rely on some Fabrication/Legal/Govt clause 117.3.b etc to block someone's production, if it HELPS!! :phew:
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version