Open-source ventilator

An open-source ventilator is a type of medical machine that helps people breathe when they can't breathe on their own. It's called "open source" because the design plans for the machine are available for anyone to see and use for free.

Imagine you're blowing up a balloon. You take in air and then blow it out, right? A ventilator does the same thing for someone who's having trouble breathing. It pumps air into their lungs and then helps them exhale it.

Doctors and scientists came up with the idea to make an open-source ventilator because during the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of people got sick and needed help breathing. There weren't enough ventilators to go around and people started getting really scared.

Making the design plans open source meant that more people could help make ventilators and that they could be made cheaper and faster. The plans are like a really, really detailed set of instructions that show how to make the machine from scratch.

Lots of different people used their skills to make open-source ventilators. Some used 3D printers to make parts, some used software to figure out how the different parts should fit together, and some used their knowledge of medicine to make sure the machine would work the right way.

Thanks to their hard work, anyone who needs a ventilator now has a better chance of getting one.