Inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Digital India' campaign, some girl students studying B.Tech at Gorakhpur's Madan Mohan Malviya Engineering College have designed a smart stick for the benefit of the visually impaired.
Named 'Shiva Stick', they have been designed to enable visually impaired persons to reach religious places of their choice without asking anyone for help.
The students said the stick comes with an in-built sensor and a voice recording chip enabling the visually impaired persons to commute on their own without the fear of being knocked down.
On turning on a switch attached to it, the stick will guide the person holding it till he reaches his desired destination.
Elaborating on how their piece of innovation works, the girls said a person using the stick can pick a particular destination from a list of religious of places that are preset in the device, by pressing the switch multiple times.
"We designed this device to reduce the dependence of visually impaired persons on others when it comes to commuting and enable them to travel to any religious place of their choice," said one of the students.
"We made this stick to make visually impaired people more independent and self-reliant. They won't need anyone's guidance. We took a selfie stick and added a voice recorder chip, ultrasonic sensor, transmitter and flashlight to it. A 9-bolt battery has also been installed in the device to run the voice recorder," said another student from the team of innovators.
"The flashlight will enable people to spot a visually impaired person in the dark or low light and help them avert mishaps," she added.
"The sensor in the stick will guide the holder. The destination can be selected by pressing the switch multiple times," one of the students told ANI.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi is championing new initiatives in the country and the Digital India' is one of them. Taking inspiration from 'Digital India', we designed this stick," said another student.
"It took the students a week to make the selfie stick. It will available for the visually impaired at Rs 600-700 apiece once the prototype is cleared and improved upon," the student told ANI.
The girls said the 'Shiva Stick' is so named as Shivratri is nearby.
( With inputs from ANI )
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