Young minds invent new transport system to save lives during medical emergency

Niranth's focus was on the emergency rescue unit. "As we all know, with growing numbers of vehicles, our transportation is not able to handle the increased demand, due to which we are facing a lot of difficulties. Transportation systems are very important for facilities such as schools, and hospitals. I created a simulation of a hospital transport system where you have to pick patients suffering from chronic conditions during emergencies, and thereafter drop them in their respective hospitals. I wanted to make sure no lives are lost due to the increased number of vehicles on roads."

Bengaluru: Undeniably, Niranth and Harshvardhan's innovations may help the healthcare industry if their coding power is put to use. These two boys have created an innovative model after taking into account the hardships faced by people during Covid-19, especially in terms of staff shortage in hospitals and the non-availability of ambulances in times of emergency.

A seventh-grade student from Geethanjali Vidyalaya, Harshvardhan, and a fourth-standard student from Freedom International School, Niranth are part of SP Robotic Works. The duo has developed an innovative transportation system for emergency use alongside a medical supportive transporter to move medical carts from one end to the other end. Harshvardhan created the medical-supported transport robot wherein he coded the robot to perform certain essential tasks. The robot will follow the nurse wherever they go, so they need not have a separate person.

Harshvardhan said, "I selected this project because during the past two years I have seen the consequences of the lack of medical staff in almost every hospital, struggling without support due to the increase in Covid-19 cases. I wanted to create a robot which would help doctors and nurses. I do not want them to waste time, pulling and pushing carts of medical items which are essential while attending to the patients. As a result, I have created a supportive transporter which will automatically follow people."

"This helps us with more personnel available to attend to patients. With this project, I feel there will be better utilization of great minds like doctors and nurses to help patients, and also we could save a lot of lives, which were lost because of the non-availability of staff to attend to, during a catastrophe like Covid-19," he added.

Niranth's focus was on the emergency rescue unit. "As we all know, with growing numbers of vehicles, our transportation is not able to handle the increased demand, due to which we are facing a lot of difficulties. Transportation systems are very important for facilities such as schools, and hospitals. I created a simulation of a hospital transport system where you have to pick patients suffering from chronic conditions during emergencies, and thereafter drop them in their respective hospitals. I wanted to make sure no lives are lost due to the increased number of vehicles on roads," said Niranth.

"I really like doing this. I have learned a lot about programming. Now, I can easily find mistakes in my code and correct them. I initially thought robotics was all about mechanical stuff; but it has electronics, programming, and project planning. It helps me think creatively and resolve simple problems. I have completed a lot of projects like this. Learning is very interesting and fun for me. It is as though a video game is real. I really like doing this," he said.

Both students participated in the National Coding and Robotics Challenge (NCRC), a platform for children aged between 7-16, where they can start from the basics and learn to code. The NCRC is a national coding and robotic challenge where the young are presented with a problem and have to come up with different ideas to resolve it. Niranth and Harshvardhan's innovations were selected from lakhs of submissions.