Blog Posts

Track Your Make

(The source version of this essay can be found at Open Source Medical Supplies, long with other explanation: https://opensourcemedicalsupplies.org/gosqas)   Free Lightweight Global Distributed Tracking for Makers Written by: Robert L. Read, Christina A. Cole, and Victoria Jaqua          (October 25, 2023) Lightweight Tracking Of an Object Tracking an object or make […]

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Did you know your support carries a 3-fold impact??

Have you ever wondered where all those individuals that take part in humanitarian efforts come from? Like how do they get initial funding and grow? Even if a group like this existed and took off, how could I contribute to something like this? Well look no further because we are a membership who seeks out

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Please Support our Portable Incubator Project at Experiment.com

Out of a pressing need I discovered as a volunteer for Engineers Without Borders USA, Public Invention has been working on a portable incubator for several years now. We recently got a great new volunteer, Melanie LaPorte, who is being invention coached by Forrest “Lee” Erickson. We’ve create our first crowdfunding campaign to raise money

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Glia builds tourniquets for Ukraine and Public Invention Helps

Invention is not exactly the same as engineering, but both require problem solving and innovation. Public Invention is proud to assist Glia, a Canadian firm, in its “Stop the Bleed” project making an open-source tourniquet for the terrible conflict in Ukraine. Not being a first responder, I only recently learned how important these devices are,

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Why we started and then froze a software effort for Ukraine

Disaster relief is different than the steady work of research, whether the disaster is natural or caused by human folly and greed. It is bursty and uncertain, urgent and unclear. When Russia invaded Ukraine, I thought the war would be over before Public Invention could possibly do anything. I was traveling to Auburn Alabama, in

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Fraunhofer Institute & Public Invention

Recently, Public Invention President Robert L. Read and other volunteers assisted a project with students from Fraunhofer Institute. The Institute released a press release summarized here: In April, COVID-19 began straining healthcare systems as we saw supply-chain breakdowns leading to ventilator shortages. To help mitigate this, individuals, communities, companies, and research institutions began to design

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Our progress and plans: An open letter about the VentMon to donors and grantors

— Robert L. Read In June and July, Public Invention applied for and received two $20,000 grants, one from the Mozilla Open Source Software (MOSS) Foundation, and one from Protocol labs, specifically to develop, make, and give away free-of-charge, the “VentMon” tester for invasive and non-invasive ventilators. The MOSS foundation grant had stronger legal language

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