Ejaad-Nama 002 : Makers Vs Virus

Ejaad-Nama (Urdu: Letters of Invention). A bi-weekly newsletter about Science, Electronics, Makers, DIY, and everything technical. We talk about lemons, acid battery and anything in between.

Every disaster movie I have ever seen starts with some government officials ignoring a scientist. From the look of things in politics in the west, hollywood might just be getting things right. Usually in these movies, scientists are the ones who do end up saving the world. I remember Jeff Goldblum flying off to space with Will Smith to save the earth from aliens in Independence Day.

Today, the focus is on how the local scientists and makers of our community are saving the world against the “Coron-aliens”

————————————-

Corona Virus:

— This open source ventilator project called the Open Lung started in community discussions on Facebook. This GitLab consists of two designs from MIT and Rice University. The makers have certainly come very long way since the discussions, and actively looking for contributors. You can follow the progress and discussions in their slack channel.

— At this point, if you are really curious how complicated a ventilator can be, You can learn about how ventilators work here.

— Likewise, Pakistan against Corona Volunteer (PAC-V) is an organization that is also active in developing an open source ventilator. If you would like to join their whatsapp group, leave me a comment below or email me. You can check the details, contacts and progress here.

Their first prototype looks like this:

— Zaid Pirwani, another maker, has made a cheap arduino based contactless infrared thermometer. This would be great for hospitals that are overrun by patients at the moment and are temporarily short in equipment. Additionally, if you live with your family or girlfriend, you might need one to avoid sharing a traditional mercury based thermometer. He has shared CAD Model, schematic and code on the gitlab. I am also in process in replicating one for my use. I will update here when finished.

—Last week, in the very first Ejaad-Nama (click here if you haven’t read that), I talked about how you can make use of your 3D printer to make these 3D printed face shield masks designed by staff at Prusa Printers. Makers in Germany have come together to make use of their tools and skills to help the medical staff. The Slack groups coordinates with Makers, Central Hubs who collect 3d printed parts and sends them to hospitals where the requirement is.

— I decided to make use of my printer and time at home to do some local good in these apocalyptic-esque times. I found another maker in this facebook group(unfortunately in German) who was already printing it for the local hospitals. I decided to help him in printing out additional 50 masks. They are currently in process of sterilization(using this wonderful guide) and assembly. Here is how it went down:

—————————————————

Socials Distancing Vs Makers:

— What happens if you put Makers in their house and don’t let them out? They make more stuff, I think? Aqeel Arshad, another hacker and maker based in Munich, decided to make contact-less door opener in his house during the COVID-19 times. He did not want to touch his intercom bell button which opens the apartment door. Hence, he hacked his home Intercom to give him the ability to open the building door from his phone. After the pandemic, this also adds a huge advantage of opening the door without taking out the keys while you hold 5 Stones worth of groceries in your hand.

— This guy figured out a way to bring the Fun to the Corona. The best way to combat the Virus. He has connected his soap dispenser with Spotify to play music exactly 20 seconds so that you can dance to the killing of the COVID-19 virus (you evil beast, I LIKE IT!).

—————————

Here I will let Thor, the god of thunder do the talking:

That will be all for this time. Dont forget to subscribe clicking the button.

Or share the content:

Leave your feedback in the comments about the content.

If you would like to send in your projects and hacks to be part of the newsletter, please do comment below, or email me: a.nadeem89@gmail.com.