Toyota Spare Parts Helping in Fight Against CV-19
Afghanistan teen student science club is using auto parts, including a Toyota windshield wiper motor, to create prototype of affordable respirator.
It’s often said that in a crisis, a person’s true character shines through in how they respond to and handle a desperate situation. For one teenager in Afghanistan, the current global crisis has pretty much turned her into a virtual MacGyver. And she’s doing it all with her teenage colleagues to help save the lives of her fellow countrymen by building a ventilator from spare parts from automobiles.
Seventeen-year-old Somaya Farooqi and her small circle of friends are all members of the all-girls robotics team of talented high-school-age students interested in science and mechanics. As reported in Tacoma, Washington-based site The News Tribune, Farooqi banded together with four friends and in a defiant but impressive and imperative act of civil disobedience, they are literally dodging roadblocks to meet and work together to develop a solution to battle the corona epidemic in Afghanistan. Equipped with an open-source blueprint from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, they are using parts from a Toyota truck to complete their prototype of an affordable, accessible respirator.
‘If we even save one life with our device, we will be proud.’
Incredibly, it is the motor of a Toyota windshield wiper that is a vital part of these respirators that the award-winning science team is building a prototype of, which they hope their national health organization will develop to battle the CV-19 epidemic. A team of mechanics is assisting with constructing the ventilator’s frame.
“If we even save one life with our device, we will be proud,” says Farooqi in the News Tribune story.
Check out the full article here for a feel-good real-life story that will make you feel proud and hopeful as we continue to all learn to confront these new changes.
Photos: Toyota; The News Tribune
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