Finding Solutions Amidst Scarcity: Engineering During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 was marked by scarcity. Hospitals ran low on ventilators; grocery shelves were devoid of basic necessities; masks and hand sanitizer were nowhere to be found. In this period of deprivation, engineers made use of the resources they had in abundance—ingenuity, resourcefulness, and perseverance—to combat shortages of all kinds.

With the coronavirus epidemic quickly turning into a pandemic, the most immediate need was to identify where and how the virus was spreading. The challenges were significant: doctors were facing a new virus with little clarity on the mode of transmission or severity of the disease. But despite all of the unknown variables, engineers were able to rapidly meet the demand for testing and tracing with a diverse array of solutions. A team of graduate students at the University of Calgary, led by Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Laura Curiel, worked collaboratively to design 3D-printed nasal swabs. The team explored, evaluated, and modified swab designs until they had a functional product, displaying what Curiel called a “strong sense of community” in working towards a common goal (Engineers Canada, 2020).

Biobot Analytics, a startup run by female engineers from Mexico and Iran, quickly launched a pro bono program to track the spread of COVID-19 through a more unconventional source: the sewers (Leiber, 2020). The co-founders combined their complementary skill sets—Biobot President Newsha Ghaeli specialized in urban studies, while her colleague Mariana Matus obtained her Ph.D. in computational and systems biology—to design machines that analyzed virus concentrations via wastewater (Kolhatkar, 2021). This approach created more accurate estimates of community spread without requiring thousands of individual tests. Students at the University of Caliornia, Berkeley, adopted a similar approach, showcasing how quickly engineers disseminated their new technology and techiques in order to rapidly scale up testing (Manke, 2020).

As the virus spread, however, communities didn’t just need accessible testing. Ventilators and other medical equipment were in short supply, necessitating creative and inexpensive alternatives. The task was challenging, as poorly-designed ventilators can increase the damage to a diseased lung. Aware of the need for precision, teams from Detroit to Ireland pitched in, sharing open-source instructions and parts lists (Somers, 2020). The pandemic made the free flow of information especially critical, and engineers decided to act in concert rather than rely on proprietary technology. Through these efforts, a team of engineers at the University of Vermont built a ventilator at a tenth of the cost of typical ICU versions (Somers, 2020). A group of mechanical engineers in Colombia also constructed a ventilator for only a few thousand dollars, ensuring that these emergency replacements were available to low- and middle-income countries (Zimmer, 2020).

The ramifications of the pandemic extended beyond the medical arena, though. Millions of people forced to shelter in place experienced newfound loneliness and anxiety. Engineers around the world used technology to counteract this social isolation. Harvard students Prasidh Chhabria and Anagha Kumar, realizing that older adults are more likely to experience loneliness, designed a web platform that helped elderly citizens maintain social connections (Zewe, 2020). The pair conducted numerous focus groups, interviewing seniors and medical professionals, to ensure that their technology met the needs of their target demographic, eventually creating software that matched older and younger adults with similar interests. Kumar said that she and Chhabria wanted to “harness the power of intergenerational relationships” to combat “the loneliness epidemic” (Zewe, 2020). As was the case with wastewater testing, engineers around the world realized that the need for solutions was too great for a single team to manage, and young adults in Texas and elsewhere collaborated to construct similar systems that combatted loneliness (West, 2020).

From mask production to meal delivery, the pandemic dramatically altered the needs of people everywhere. Thankfully, engineers were able to shift their work in accordance with the changing times, developing innovative solutions that alleviated social struggles and medical challenges. In an era of enormous difficulties, these engineers and countless others demonstrated that the human capacity for compassion and creation is endless—and that engineering is essential to meeting every crisis.

Annotated Bibliography:

Engineers Canada. (2020, June 17). INWED 2020: Laura Curiel, PhD, P.Eng. https://engineerscanada.ca/news-and-events/news/inwed-2020-laura-curiel-phd-peng.
This source introduced me to Curiel’s work and inspired me to research other female engineers who had developed innovative COVID-19 testing solutions. I was especially inspired by her references to the value of community and collaboration in the engineering process.

Kolhatkar, Sheelah. (2021, January 18). An untested source of pandemic data? The sewer. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/25/an-untested-source-of-pandemic-data-the- sewer.
Kolhatkar’s article focused on Biobot Analytics, discussing how the company’s technology was being used to trace the spread of COVID-19 and make decisions about, for example, whether to keep schools open. It also described the engineering process the co-founders went through to perfect their wastewater collection machinery and protocol.

Leiber, Nick. (2020, June 1). A startup is testing sewage to trace the U.S. spread of Covid. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-01/startup-biobot-analytics-is-tracing-coronavirus- through-poop.
After initially reading about Biobot’s work in The New Yorker, I wanted more information about how and why the founders pursued wastewater testing. This article revealed that Biobot was running a free program for many communities and mentioned many of the benefits of community-wide wastewater testing as opposed to individual tests.

Manke, Kara. (2020, October 29). UC Berkeley launches pop-up lab to monitor Bay Area sewage for COVID-19. Berkeley News. https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/10/29/uc-berkeley-launches-pop-up-lab-to- monitor-bay-area-sewage-for-covid-19/.
This article demonstrated that wastewater testing, although still unconventional, was not an approach unique to Biobot’s founders. Rather, it showed that engineers around the country and world were rapidly and collaboratively designing a multitude of strategies and technologies to combat the spread of COVID-19, explaining that the Berkeley team wanted to share information and replicate their strategies elsewhere.

Somers, James. (2020, May 11). The engineers taking on the ventilator shortage. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/18/the-engineers-taking-on-the-ventilator-shortage.
This source offered a comprehensive overview of the challenges of creating low-cost, effective ventilators. It highlighted how engineers around the country and world were working together in order to rapidly design and scale up production of ventilators.

West, Sandra. (2020, November 24). This Longhorn startup is bridging the generation gap to combat loneliness. UT News. https://news.utexas.edu/2020/11/24/this-longhorn-startup-is-bridging-the- generation-gap-to-combat-loneliness/.
Once I had learned about Kumar and Chhabria’s solution to isolation-induced loneliness, I wondered whether other teams had taken similar approaches. This story of UT Austin students working to mitigate the impacts of isolation demonstrated how groups around the nation were using engineering to combat loneliness.

Zewe, Adam. (2020, September 10). Eradicating the loneliness pandemic: Student startup uses technology to foster intergenerational relationships. Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2020/09/Eradicating-loneliness-pandemic.
Although I had encountered many stories of engineers assisting with medical issues like ventilator and testing shortages, there were fewer highly-publicized examples of engineers using their skills to address societal issues like loneliness and anxiety. Kumar and Chhabria’s work showed how engineers of various ages and genders worked together to craft intergenerational solutions to social problems.

Zimmer, Katarina. (2020, July 7). Colombian engineers’ ventilators to be tested in COVID patients. The Scientist. https://www.the-scientist.com/newsopinion/colombian-engineers -ventilators-to-be-tested- in-covid-patients-67696.
While Somers’ article mentioned that teams around the globe were working on ventilator production, I wanted to understand how engineers in low- and middle-income countries were contributing to the effort and creating technology that was usable and affordable in underserved areas. This article described the unique challenges that Colombian engineers faced and the process used to design, test, and manufacture ventilators.