Pune: A team of MIT World Peace University has conceptualised a wrist band design, named Trident Band, which is a wearable hand sanitiser that also gives out reminders to regularly sanitise hands when outdoors and avoid touching face continuously.
These are the two necessary precautionary measures to stay away from COVID-19, as suggested by the World Health Organisation (WHO). This team, guided by Computer Engineering Assistant Professor Sharmishta Desai consists of five students of third-year computer engineering -- Atharva Barve, Vishwa Singh, Shivam Shrirao, Devesh Bhogre, and Ashish Atkar.
The team has participated in the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) Mega Online Challenge Samadahan held by MHRD’s Innovation Cell. “I had read a 2009 study by Google, which mentioned wearable hand sanitisers. I shared the concept with the students, and it is from there that we got the idea of advancing the concept,” said Desai.
Within a week, the students got together via video conferencing. “We started working on the project two weeks ago. It took us one week of discussion and ideation over the project,” said Barve.
The wrist band consists of a refill tank, sensor, and a battery. The storage capacity of the refill tank will be 10-12 ml of sanitiser that can work for 4 to 5 hours at a time, and dispense one-two droplets each time, said Desai.
“The function of the wrist band will be to alert the person to sanitise their hands with disinfectants whenever he/she touches a surface. With the help of a sensor installed in it, as per the hand movement, it will alert the person if he/she is about to touch their face,” said Desai.
She added that a timer will be set, so there is a gap between every use of sanitiser, as continuously using a sanitiser also causes skin irritation, nausea and headache due to the smell; therefore it shouldn’t be used a lot. The team has proposed the idea to MHRD Samadhan.
