Alabama Public Television presents a “Spotlight on Agriculture” episode that focuses on an engineering project at Auburn that converted CPAP machines into functional ventilators.
Tom Burch and Michael Zabala, faculty in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Hayden Burch, a sophomore in mechanical engineering, initiated the project in March, as the growing COVID-19 pandemic created a worldwide shortage of ventilators. The Auburn team developed RE-InVENT, a system used to quickly and inexpensively convert a CPAP machine, which is commonly used for treating sleep apnea, into a functional ventilator.