Inspiration
One member of the team was a clinic volunteer during the peak of COVID-19, and was able to witness first-hand the heavy understaffing of nurses, with only one very busy nurse on site at all times. Volunteers were always present to aid with simple, non-medical tasks such as filing papers and sanitizing rooms. We were inspired to create a robot that would be able to aid nurses and other healthcare professionals further in basic patient care, in order to ease their workload and allow them more time for more focused, hands-on patient care and be able to save more lives.
What it does
We built an automated robot that is able to move around and be pre-programmed to visit patients on its own. It has a built-in storage compartment with regulated temperature for transporting medications, a robotic arm that is meant to deliver the medications and injections directly to the patient, and a heart rate monitor for basic patient checkups. It is also able to communicate with other devices through WiFi and Bluetooth, which allows it to share and save this patient data.
How we built it
We built the robot using one ESP32 Module, which acts as the main controller for the robot. It handles sensors and communication to the drive Arduino. We used two Arduino Uno boards, with one used for driving and one for robotic arm movement. These were separated to allow for faster development, and a neater setup as the two systems operate semi-independently. One 9V battery is used as the power source.
Challenges we ran into
A major challenge we ran into was integrating all the components we wanted to use into one robot. We ran into issues such as a lack of space for the multiple sensors, eventually adding another breadboard. It took a long time until we were able to assemble the parts as we first had to get each of our many components working individually.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are extremely proud of building a mostly working prototype with multiple components that work together! We were able to get the sensors, motors, and robotic arm working all together after struggling with each individual element for hours, which was a very exciting moment for us.
What we learned
We learned from this project that the more components there are, the more important it is to make sure to take the designing and building process step-by-step, fully understanding each component and attempting to connect two at once, then three at once, and so on, and only assembling the final product at the end. While the majority of the time we had was quite stressful as we did not have a concrete, put-together product and only a detailed plan, we realized how important this detailed plan was and our project came together at the end.
What's next for Heals on Wheels
A next step for Heals on Wheels that we envisioned, but did not incorporate in this hackathon due to lack of time, is to add a camera, which will allow the robot to navigate its way around a hospital or clinic much better. With the use of video recognition algorithms, we also hope to have the robotic arm deliver safe and precise injections to patients by recognizing the correct location to inject the needle. Facial recognition abilities would be another great addition, in order to confirm patient identities.
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