During the start of the Coronavirus pandemic and while I was finishing up my bachelor's degree, I signed onto a project to build an emergency use ventilator. At the time it was an easy decision and a chance to put my engineering skills to work helping those affected by the pandemic.
TheVentilatorProject.org is a 200+ person 501c3 effort focused on developing and deploying medical devices in service of needs created by the Coronavirus pandemic. From the start, the primary goal of the project was to develop and deploy an emergency ventilator that was built with parts sourced from non-medical supply lines. We wanted to develop a device that would compliment the offerings from the "big guys," not get in their way!
I joined the project as an electrical and controls engineer but I soon realized that what the project truly needed was a firmware engineering team. I started my time at the project as the only firmware engineer but by the time I left, I had grown the team to 7 engineers. The project is currently in the final stages of the FDA Emergency Use Authorization process.