New Delhi: Robots to collect biomedical waste, clean water
bodies, clear thousands of tonnes of garbage from the site of Haj pilgrimage in
Saudi Arabia and even a robotic E-bin from South Africa… students at the World
Robot Olympiad had ideas aplenty on how to achieve a Swachh Bharat, the
robotic, safe and non-hazardous way.
Amongst
the participants at this year's edition, the first time India is hosting the
event, was 13-year-old Navya, a Class IX student of St Joseph's in Mumbai, who
remembers being appalled when she read about a nurse who had to pick up
biomedical waste with her bare hands and contracted Hepatitis B. That prompted
Navya and her two friends, Anshu, 10, and Soham, 13, to come up with the Nurse
Assistant, a robot to do the job.
It
took them six months of hard work. “We researched a lot before starting this
project. We read lots of articles on how nurses in hospitals collect biomedical
waste, which is really dangerous for their health. So we have come up with this
robot, which will clean biomedical waste in a more efficient manner,” she said.
Little
wonder that their stall at the Olympiad -- being held at the India Expo Centre
in Noida, with the theme ‘Rap the Scrap' in line with the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan
-- was a popular one with many visitors stopping by.
Caregivers
like doctors, nurses and ward-boys in hospitals are multiple times more prone
to catching infections as they are in close proximity with the sick and handle
biomedical waste without requisite precautions. In Mumbai's Sewri TB Hospital,
Asia's largest centre for treating TB, for instance, close to 200 caregivers
have been infected with the disease. Of these, 40, including a senior doctor,
have died.
“It
is a very good idea to pick up biomedical waste with help of robots,” said Dr
Lalit Anande, senior medical officer at Sewri.
Source: DNA-27th November;2016
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