2024 End Of Year Update

As we reach the end of another year, I want to take a moment to reflect on our accomplishments and the progress we've made together. 2024 has been an impactful year for Tetra Bio Distributed, marked by our commitment to innovation, community engagement, and providing essential resources to those in need.

This year, we had the incredible opportunity to attend two Maker Faires. These events not only allowed us to showcase our work but also facilitated valuable connections with fellow innovators and organizations. Our presence at these Faires helped raise awareness about our mission and provided a platform for inspiration and collaboration. They also help us to understand our community; in particular, there are two groups of people who could benefit from our technology.  The first are woodworkers, sculptors, and stoneworkers: they can use the Tetra Bio PAPRa as it exists today to protect themselves from wood shavings, dust, and other particulates that can cause serious breathing problems.  The second are those who would want protection from VOCs, like painters.  Our current device does not have the fan strength to support the VOC filters we've found on the market, and so we'd need to build a new device to support that need, or different filters.

As a result of these interactions, we've realized that approaching Tetra Bio the way we have is almost certainly incorrect.  We are a nonprofit, and as such, need to be supportive of those in need. While we managed to get a storefront set up for this last year, we want to shift to building and distributing PAPRs to those in need. As such, I currently have 4 fully built PAPRs, ready for distribution, to any who might want or need one.  If you or anyone you know would benefit from a PAPR, please reach out so we can arrange delivery. Of course, these PAPRs have not passed NIOSH certifications and should not be used for any industrial use case that requires that level of protection-- these devices have a demonstrated 2000+ fit factor using a PortaCount, but they have not passed any certification process.

We have plans to build several more devices, starting with buying the circuitry in bulk rather than hand crafting each board, a multi-hour process that can be unfortunately error prone. We do not have the capabilities to build a device that can filter VOCs (volatile organic compounds, ie, protection for painting or environments with organic solvents), and would appreciate any and all help that anyone would want to provide for that use case.

We would definitely appreciate any donations as well to support this shift in mission to providing breath protection for free to those in need.

For those local to the Los Angeles area, we intend to attend the Los Angeles Maker Faire on April 2nd; come on out and say hi!

2023 End Of Year Update

We here at Tetra Bio Distributed managed to do quite a few things this year.

In early April, we went to the Los Angeles Maker Faire, showcasing N100 and P100 designs to anyone and everyone interested at the 20,000-attendee show. Many people were interested in what we had to show, and we plan to revisit the Faire with our most recent designs. 

Later in the year, we created and delivered three working prototypes to a Ukrainian relief effort in the hopes of helping search-and-rescue teams sift through the debris left after missile strikes. We have not heard how those teams have received the devices, and we hope the users are all safe and sound. 

Our efforts in Q3 and Q4 focused on developing instructions for home solderers to build our through-hole boards, which we've also been using as business cards, as opposed to earlier videos that showed building and testing the units. Finally, we have been refining our designs to improve battery life for the N100 so that a single M12 battery can last for three or four hours on a single charge.  

While we had wanted to have our own mask design, and had engaged with a design house to do so, we could not get the donations together to make that happen. So, we're looking to have a new fundraiser where we're setting up an Etsy store with three products:

1. A fully built PAPR, including a backpack and extra parts to run the device for multiple months.

2. A Tinker version with all the parts, but with only assembled electronics, for those interested in building a PAPR but not in soldering or 3D printing.

3. A Maker version with only the solderable electronic parts for Makers who want to print and assemble the entire device.

We intend to have the shop up and running by April 6th, when we plan to re-attend the Los Angeles Maker Faire. While we cannot sell anything at the Faire, each type of PAPR should be available. We hope to fund our efforts for subsequent quarters, especially around mask construction, and learn how people want to use our devices.

We deeply appreciate the help and guidance we've received from all of those who have helped us, and we're looking forward continuing our work on these open-source devices in the new year.  If you're able and interested, we could use your help-- and just a reminder, all donations are tax deductible-- we're a 501(c)3!  If you don't want to donate, but want to participate in some other way (do you have modeling experience?  Can you help us make a mask?) then please reach out to me, we'd be happy to talk further.

2022 End Of Year Update

We here at Tetra Bio Distributed have continued working throughout 2022 on making the PAPRa a reality.  We've gone through a series of iterations on the design, and also begun popularizing the device.

• We gave three talks at Scale 19x about the PAPRa, the Fitra, and the tooling we've created to support open source medical device creation.  The links lead right to the recordings of the talks, if you're interested.

• We have begun work on acquiring OSHWA certification as a precursor to other routes of publication  

• We livestreamed two PAPR constructions, with the June one available here

• We have begun truly distributed manufacturing by helping Kevin Butler, our Treasurer, build a PAPR in his home in Atlanta, very far from most of us in Southern California.

In the new year, we have a few goals-- assuming we don't have to pivot into more exciting things due to the rise of a new variant or some other similar catastrophe.  There are a few issues to be addressed with the current PAPR design, such as enabling the removal and replacement of filters without having to completely disassemble the box.  We are also looking to go beyond using a 3M respirator for the contact surface with the face; this part of the project will require some additional 3D modeling skills that we currently do not have.  Finally, we want to publish our designs to a larger audience to ensure that everyone can build a PAPR if they need one.

We deeply appreciate the help and guidance we've received from all of those who have helped us, and we're looking forward continuing our work on these open-source devices in the new year.  If you're able and interested, we could use your help-- and just a reminder, all donations are tax deductible-- we're a 501(c)3!  If you don't want to donate, but want to participate in some other way (do you have modeling experience?  Can you help us make a mask?) then please reach out to info@tetrab.io, we'd be happy to talk further.

2021 End Of Year Update

In June, we worked with doctors at USC to study the Fitra, a fit assist device we designed that enabled two commercial N95 respirator models to pass quantitative N95 fit tests (click here for the whole article)

• We had 7 different Build Parties for the PAPRa, our open source 3D printable Powered Air-Purifying Respirator that has been shown to provide N95 levels of protection when tested with a Portacount 8048, with current instructions available here

• We have addressed and closed over 150 separate issues and issued 7 releases of the PAPRa, iterating over our designs until we could show that the device was able to deliver 120 liters per minute of N95 filtered air over 3 hours for a single charge

• We have built prototypes of our vent splitter, the Tetra, while working in close collaboration with partners at 3D Crowd and USC

• All of the nitty-gritty details continue to be published on our Github page, with more general updates on https://www.tetrab.io

What do we have planned for 2022? Well, first, we want to publish our PAPRa design and begin the path to make an N95 respirator that can achieve NIOSH approval. We also want to finish our ventilator splitter design, an emergency device that allows for each patient to be isolated from other patients and provide clinical control of the inspiratory volume.

We deeply appreciate the help and guidance we've received from all of those who have helped us, and we're looking forward continuing our work on these open-source devices in the new year. If you're able and interested, we could use your help-- and just a reminder, all donations are tax deductible, now that we're a 501(c)3!

2020 End Of Year Update

What a year it's been! Let's be honest-- we would not know each other if 2020 had gone any other way. While I wish it had gone another way (as I'm sure we all do) I'm glad that, at the very least, I've gotten to work with everyone here at TBD, the most incredible group of volunteers I've ever seen.

And we did a great deal of work this year.

How much work?

- 4 Github repositories, with 77 merged pull requests and 73 closed issues
- 31 custom designed parts in Fusion360
- 15 subassemblies with associated exploded diagrams
- The main assembly of the Tetra splitter has 161 revisions with 155 off-the-shelf components and 107 custom components
- Our very own color scheme and branding
- Our very own website (https://tetrabio.org, or https://tetra.bio, or https://tetrab.io, depending on what flavor you want)
- 25 separate in-person prototype builds recorded for posterity (https://www.markmroden.com/Tetra-Testing), with 532 images taken and 158 videos shot
- Notes from at least 130 regular meetings all recorded in the #project-tetra slack channel
- Spin-off projects for the Fitra and the PAPRa that may end up with publications in their own right
- 1023-EZ submitted to the IRS for full non-profit status
- 42 posts on Instagram, 65 followers, and reached 180 accounts in the last 30 days

Not only did we do all of that, but many people have found themselves able to use their work on Tetra to land jobs.

I’m incredibly proud of the work we’ve done— time to knuckle down and get some products into the hands of those that need them.