Nantes (AFP)

A plastic mannequin, pipe inserted into the mouth, sits in the basement of a building in Nantes amid the drills, mattresses and other blackboards with calculations: it was here that "MakAir" was born, a low cost respirator conceptualized in record time.

"By doing some statistics, we realized that there was going to be tension on a number of things in this epidemic, and among these things: the respirator," explains Quentin Adam, remembering the start of the project in mid-March.

"There are things on which we had no idea how to help," he continues, but "we said to ourselves + it must be achievable to build a respirator +".

In a few phone calls, it brings together entrepreneurs and medical experts wishing to make this key device more accessible to save the patients most seriously affected by Covid-19.

In the premises of the Nantes start-up Crisp, they are a handful of DIY a small cardboard box on which they connect multicolored wires and a few buttons.

"Everyone here reacts like a scientific barracks, in fact we are there to fight and win", assures Quentin Adam by presenting this place where the toolboxes mingle with computer screens, against a background of electro and light music artificial giving the impression that it is "always 3:00 pm".

In just three weeks, the cardboard box becomes a prototype that looks like a large central computer unit.

Inside this 20-kilo device, there are moped batteries or even drone parts, because in a crisis, engineers favored available and new materials, so as not to penalize manufacturers of traditional respirators.

"If we have a sub-optimal solution that works, we take", summarizes Quentin Adam, while insisting on the rigor of the validation process which is underway with the National Agency for Drug Safety (ANSM).

- Slippers offered -

To obtain the respirator, which has already been successfully tested on a pig, several innovations were essential.

3D printing first, because it has accelerated prototyping, and the use of free software, thanks to which specialists from around the world have been able to contribute.

MakAir "first relies on software before relying on precision mechanics", explains Pierre-Antoine Gourraud, teacher-researcher at the Faculty of Medicine of Nantes.

In a crisis situation, "producing precision mechanics is much more complicated than controlling, and possibly compensating for the inaccuracies of construction with software", he justifies.

With his shirt and boat shoes, the professor's style contrasts with that of Quentin Adam, who wears a thick beard and golden dockers. Yet their communication is "almost telepathic", says Mr. Gourraud.

Like this duo, the members of the collective have been living for a few weeks a unique human adventure and anecdotes abound on their extraordinary confinement, which notably saw a part of the team cross France by night bus to go spend several days at CEA Grenoble.

For example, the nuclear studies center, which has put its advanced equipment at their disposal, offered slippers to the team that is working day and night.

At all stages of the project, the following stages of which should be the first human tests before manufacture by the French group Seb, marks of solidarity flowed.

The project leaders welcome the donation or loan of equipment, the provision of engineers by companies or the participation of communities, which should ultimately guarantee a production cost between 1,000 and 1,500 euros, while the respirators current ones can be billed between 10,000 and 40,000 euros.

© 2020 AFP