Sensirion’s Sensors in Tomorrow’s Innovations

Recently, the BREATH Respiratory Hackathon took place simultaneously across three continents. The event brought together designers, technicians, engineers, patients, doctors, entrepreneurs and innovators to develop solutions for patients with respiratory disease.

The event's aim was to explore new devices or systems, which improve the wellbeing and the life quality of patients with respiratory disease. If treatments can be made more effective, the life of patients would be improved as well - and innovation has a crucial role to play. Over two days, in Boston (MIT), London (Imperial College) and Tel Aviv (Technion), innovators from around the world met to "hack" into medical equipment for respiratory use. The teams competed against each other in different disciplines, each examining and working with the same equipment. Differential pressure sensors, mass flow meters and humidity and temperature sensors from Sensirion were part of the equipment as well. The teams were able to directly build in our sensors into their newly developed prototypes. In London, for example, the winning team Krypton developed a computer game with an educational background. The game is controlled by a breath-operated COPD simulator, meaning that one blows into a device and thereby controls a token. At the same time, the user is given a tangible sense of breathlessness, thus simulating respiratory disease. In order to measure the gas flow, the team used a Sensirion mass flow meter SFM3000.

During the BREATH Respiratory Hackathon, the teams developed various devices and systems with potential. Moreover, the winning teams are given the chance to visit the DDL conference (Drug Delivery to Lungs) in Edinburgh in December, and so will team Krypton. Currently, they are following up on their COPD-simulation prototype and are trying to advance it for the event.

Sensirion congratulates all the winning teams on their inventions and on winning the BREATH Respiratory Hackathon!