Robert Menard - Ventilator Inventor Extraordinaire!

[AndyK]

And to throw another wrench into his gears, GM is up and running on ventilator production; expecting 5,000 - 10,000 per month within a few weeks.

[grixit]

I hope that Menard will do the decent thing once the money comes in. By that i mean send a truckload of local brewery beers to Burnaby, as he's been the only person to show anything resembling support for the plan.

[Burnaby49]

You scoffers are going to be thoroughly humiliated when Menard hits the big-time with his brilliant design. He's revealed a member of his illustrious team and I'm converted!

Marina LaBaff went down an internet rabbit hole late at night while trying to figure out what she could do to help during the COVID-19 pandemic. When she emerged, she was helping an international team of scientists, engineers and inventors develop an emergency ventilator and had arranged for it to be tested at SUNY Canton.

The effort is part of the Code Life Ventilator Challenge sponsored by Montreal General Hospital Foundation and Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre.

The goal of the challenge is for teams to design a low-cost, simple, easy-to-use and easy-to-build ventilator that can serve COVID patients, in an emergency timeframe. It should be easy to build locally, its functionality must be easy to verify, and must meet design requirements of the challenge.

RoboBreath, the team that Ms. LaBaff is working with, consists of people from around the world, she said.

So what unique talents and credentials does Marina bring to the table? What makes her qualified to become a member of Menard's elite "international team of scientists, engineers and inventors"?

Ms. LaBaff is the owner of Million Monarchs Boudoir photography in Massena.

https://www.nny360.com/news/publicservi ... eH_-6l23jg

Unfortunately funding is still lagging a little behind the rapidly advancing prototype development. GoFundMe donations are still sitting at $22. Reach in your pockets guys! Menard's put a lot of work into this. he should get at least two cases of beer out of it.

[Frater I*I]

Unfortunately funding is still lagging a little behind the rapidly advancing prototype development. GoFundMe donations are still sitting at $22. Reach in your pockets guys! Menard's put a lot of work into this. he should get at least two cases of beer out of it.

He can already afford two cases...of Pabst Blue Ribbon....and it's the best he deserves....

[Burnaby49]

Menard's put out another video showing his device in action. It can blow up a balloon!

https://youtu.be/aW_GQs49miE

However, a week into the $100,000 GoFundMe drive to make the dream a reality, donations are still stalled at $22. If donations continue at this weekly rate Menard will have his funding competed by 2107.

[longdog]

I still don't get why he's using two motors to do the job of one. Twice the complexity, twice the points of failure.

The balloon he so spectacularly inflated in the most inefficient way possible is as close to being a ventilator as that contraption.

[NYGman]

Why do we need his invention, this looks quite good, and simple too.

[The Observer]

It just may be that Menard is out of luck; hospitals are now trending to keeping people off ventilators, on the theory that the patient has a better chance against the virus without the ventilator.

[Burnaby49]

It just may be that Menard is out of luck; hospitals are now trending to keeping people off ventilators, on the theory that the patient has a better chance against the virus without the ventilator.

Given that after more than a week of promotion Menard's GoFundMe effort it has stalled at $22 (the amount it got from two donations the first day) I would argue that actual ventilator demand and useage is totally irrelevant. As I'd earlier said the Robo-Breath was just a MacGuffin, a device used to drive the narrative forward but not, in itself, of any importance. It was just something wheezing away on the table as justification for the GoFundMe campaign.

[Burnaby49]

The dream is over.

The grandiose Robo-Breath website, with its claim of having an "international team of engineers, doctors, scientists, designers, students, and entrepreneurs" feverishly working together on perfecting the device, is gone after after an all too-brief nine day existence.

https://www.robobreath.com/

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Menard has not posted anything about the Robo-Breath on his FB page since he made a link to the video of his party balloon inflation test. If you feel like helping Rob through these difficult early days of the development of his life-saving device there is still one part of the whole project still up and running. The Robo-Breath GoFundMe page is waiting for your donations and it certainly needs your support. It's received a grand total of $22 made in two donations, both on the first day the GoFundMe campaign was opened.

[grixit]

Robo Breath sounds more like one of those devices that won't let you start your car if you're drunk.

[longdog]

Or an Irish gay prOn star.

[Burnaby49]

I was wrong! The dream still lives! while the Robo-Breath website is gone the GoFundMe account is still open and Menard is still carrying the torch forward. he's posted another video!

https://youtu.be/dxivfGRAoNs

Although somewhat of a disappointment since it's just the same wheezy contraption wearily inflating, apparently, the same balloon as in the prior video. The video doesn't actually show the Robo-Breath blowing the balloon up but a narrator assures us that it did, in fact, do so. The device doesn't sound particularly reliable, it sounds more like Burnaby49 trudging up a long, long flight of stairs than a triumph of medical and engineering ingenuity. Early days I suppose. However, on a positive note, Rob has changed the Robo-Breath colour scheme so it doesn't look as much like a child's toy abandoned in a McDonald's ball room. A more subdued, professional looking dark blue and white combination.

Rob has dumped the story-line of an international team of multi-discipline experts busily working away and has come out loud and proud as the sole visionary behind the device;

Robo-Breath 2.0

This design was created entirely by Robert Menard and he is the sole owner of all intellectual property rights associated with it.

GoFundMe still stalled at $22 however.

[longdog]

That's a very unique use of the expression "intellectual property"

[Gregg]

Having dome absolutely phuck all research, I'm still pretty sure that if he were miraculously given 10,000 effective, operating devices thus freeing him any expense of R&D and manufacturing, the cost to get the permission to legally sell them would still be north of a million pounds.

He has 2 videos and $22.

[Burnaby49]

Three videos. The first one without the balloon and two with a balloon. And let's not forget the now terminated website. A lot of effort for $22.00, and Canadian dollars at that.

[grixit]

Having dome absolutely phuck all research, I'm still pretty sure that if he were miraculously given 10,000 effective, operating devices thus freeing him any expense of R&D and manufacturing, the cost to get the permission to legally sell them would still be north of a million pounds.

He has 2 videos and $22.

I don't know about Canada, but i'm pretty sure the US FDA would want extensive demonstrations. So far, we haven't even seen it keep a resuscitation doll breathing.

[JohnPCapitalist]

Having dome absolutely phuck all research, I'm still pretty sure that if he were miraculously given 10,000 effective, operating devices thus freeing him any expense of R&D and manufacturing, the cost to get the permission to legally sell them would still be north of a million pounds.

He has 2 videos and $22.

Last time I checked, approval of a new device in a safety-critical category, which a respirator would certainly be, is an absolute minimum of $100 million US ($3.4 billion Canadian or thereabouts). Probably quite a bit higher, because Menard is claiming to have a totally new technology for solving the problem.

[Pottapaug1938]

Three videos. The first one without the balloon and two with a balloon. And let's not forget the now terminated website. A lot of effort for $22.00, and Canadian dollars at that.

... for a project which would win third prize in a high school science fair.

[Burnaby49]

Menard seems to have given up trying to pretend that the Robo-Breath is anything other than a failed grade 10 project. He hasn't posted anything on FB for two days, hasn't mentioned the Robo-Breath for longer than that, and hasn't put up any more videos. Probably with good reason, what's to put up? He's already released three videos of it wheezing away just trying to inflate a balloon. Adding a fourth to the roster would just be final proof (not that it's needed) that the Robo-Breath has reached the limits of what Menard can do with Canadian Tire plumbing supplies and his abilities as an inventor. Continuing the charade is pointless anyhow given the total failure of Menard's GoFundMe donation campaign. The account has been open for two weeks and the only donations were the two made on the first day for a total of $22.