Dally's mechanical ventilator design can be assembled quickly, using off-the-shelf parts with a total cost of around $400 -- making it an accessible and affordable alternative to traditional, dedicated ventilators, which can cost $20,000 or more.

The design created by Dally strives for simplicity, and basically includes just two central components -- a solenoid valve and a microcontroller. The design is called the OP-Vent, and in this video you can see how bare-bones it is in terms of hardware compared to existing alternatives, including some of the other more complex emergency-use ventilator designs developed in response to COVID-19.

IT can be assembled in as little as five minutes, and is small enough to fit in a Pelican case for easy transportation and potability. It also employs fewer parts and uses less energy than similarly simple designs that adapt the manual breather bags used by paramedics in emergency response.

The design has been sent to the FDA under the agency’s Emergency Use Authorisation programme for COVID-19 equipment, and then Dally will seek manufacturing partners to pursue large-scale manufacturing.