- Aims to help medical workers and encourage citizens to reduce contact with Covid-19 patients
- Pursuing a course in Robotics by RoboChamps which has also been mentoring them
- Working on 2 more robots – For delivering food to patients and another prototype structure to sanitize the whole body when someone passes through it
India, April 18, 2020: A brother-duo Vinayak and Kartik Tara, aged 8 and 12 years old have developed Ventilators and Automatic Water/Sanitizer dispenser to help reduce contact between healthcare workers and Covid-19 patients. Created at a bare minimum cost, the prototypes can be installed at Hospitals, Vegetable Mandis, Kirana Stores, Police Stations, and even Police Vans. Both siblings have been pursuing a course in Robotics for 4 years through RoboChamps, an Edutech startup. With this initiative, they aim to help Prime Minister Narender Modi in this fight and seek support by Government to make these models in bulk quantity for hospitals to overcome shortage immediately.
A number of medical staff including doctors and nurses in India has been reported to get infected while treating patients. People walking down the streets to buy essentials also has a potential in community spread of the virus. Therefore, to curb the spread further and help the frontline staff, the duo created the automatic sanitizer dispenser prototype that can detect a hand from a range of 2 cms. It works in the same manner how automatic taps work in malls but the interesting aspect is that it has been built within a price bracket of Rs 850. Robochamps the guiding inspiration for these kids is aiming to deliver 100’s of products immediately and has urged for the support of the Indian government.
Similarly, for helping frontline medical staff at hospitals, the kids have created Automatic Ventilators by converting the existing manual ventilators available in the market. A balloon like structure is being compressed by a motor between two wooden walls (acting as hands) set at a particular speed and time as the ventilator is connected to circuit and interfaced with mobile app so that patient’s health can be monitored closely through the mobile app. The entire design is created to be economically viable within a price range of Rs. 1560. The working prototype is tested and proven to be successful and can be helpful for medical staff and hospitals. The sibling duo conceptualized, designed and built the automated machines under the guidance of Mr. Akshay Ahuja, Founder, RoboChamps.
Speaking on the automated ventilators, Mr. Akshay Ahuja, Founder, RoboChamps, says “Currently a lot of health establishments and bodies have been working on developing new prototypes of a ventilator using 3D Printing to help with the shortage of Ventilators however the model developed by our students is completely different as we are rather converting manual ventilators into automatic but the process will be the same, to pump the balloon and use two wooden walls instead of hands to avoid human interaction.”
He further adds, “We were working in a B2B model before the lockdown where we offer Robotics and Coding courses by setting up Labs in schools, however, due to corona lockdown we found it difficult to keep educating children due to our offline model. Hence, we have started consulting them through video conferencing to help them continue with their education. During the lockdown both our students were bored and thought of creating some robot so we started thinking of innovative ways of how we could create a Robot that could help during Corona, this is where the idea to create this Robot prototype came in mind.”
Currently both the kids are working on 2 more Robot Protoypes.
The 1st model will help deliver food to Covid 19 patients without human intervention. It will be customized as per beds in the hospital, the Robot can supply food to every patient automatically. The robots are conceptualized at a nominal price which is equivalent to INR 2300. The 2nd model will be a structure that can sanitize the whole body when someone passes through it. The structure can be installed in schools, malls, and all other crowded places once lockdown is over.
12-year-old Kartik Tara of Class 8th says, “Since the lockdown, we have been seeing news all over the internet, television about how Corona has affected countries, people and economies at a large scale. We got inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s initiatives along with a few other startups for dealing with Corona. I want to contribute to society and promote Skill India.”
8-year-old Vinayak Tara of Class 4th quips excitedly, “I am really happy that we created something that will help hospitals and public places. Akshay sir has been mentoring us constantly on a video call and I want to thank him for all his hard work.”
