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The "Evergreen" elder care robot would help take care of residents in assisted living communities while reducing opportunities for COVID-19 to spread among patients, staff, and visitors. (Apple Pi Robotics )

Apple Pi Robotics

Published July 22, 2020

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Over the course of the last few months Guilfords own Apple Pi Robotics FIRST Robotics team of high school aged students from the shoreline, competed in Parametric Technology Corporations (PTC) Robots To The Rescue competition. PTC is a leader in computer aided design (CAD) software. All FIRST teams were challenged to virtually design a robot to solve a current real-world problem using Onshape, a web-based CAD Software that allows a group to access and edit documents at the same time. Starting on April 3, 2020, with a goal to continue innovating and working as a team during the pandemic, a group of students and two mentors from the team decided to take on the challenge. The first few virtual meetings were scheduled for brainstorming. Their preliminary thought was to design a robot that would benefit local businesses through the hard time of social distancing. Starting with many ideas and ending with two: the Bishop curbside delivery robot and the Evergreen elder care robot. Bishops Orchards, a major Connecticut shoreline provider of high-quality fruits, vegetables along with a range of grocery products, was a natural target for the team. Al Bishop founded the team in 2007, and there were team members currently working there performing curbside delivery. Having a robot perform the task would reduce contact, providing more safety for the employees and customers. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and social distancing, many businesses started implementing a curbside delivery system, which is a no-contact system where customers make orders online and pick them up at a scheduled time. Bishops Orchards system is very similar where groceries are scheduled to be picked up, customers pull into a parking spot at a specific time, and their groceries are placed into the trunks of their cars. During brainstorming sessions, our team quickly realized that this process could be easily automated without changing the mechanics to the curbside pickup system. By the second week of meetings, we had started designing a chassis --which was based on the designs of our current and previous competition robots-- and brainstorming different methods of carrying out the curbside pickup mechanics; including how the robot would hold groceries, use line following sensors and software to navigate through the parking lot, and deliver a basket of up to 8 bags of groceries to a stand adjacent to the customers car.The Evergreen Woods nursing home, a retirement and assisted living community, was another local business that was majorly affected by Covid-19. Home to around 250 residents, Evergreen Woods instituted many safety precautions because of the virus, including limited familial visits, resident to resident contact, and movement in and out of the community. The Evergreen elder care robot was designed to limit person to person contact to increase the safety of the residents as well as the nurses. A parent of one of the team members is a nurse there, and she was able to provide the team with a video of what the robot would need to do to execute the task. The robot is equipped to complete each daily procedure such as checking oxygen saturation, blood pressure, pulse, and temperature, watching respiration rate, bringing in pills and daily groceries, and taking out the trash. They also designed a holder for a tablet so that nurses could video chat with the residents so that visits would be more friendly. The robot also uses line following technology that the team had previously developed, with the added twist that it had to operate elevator buttons to get to the residents floor.They submitted both designs on May 15 along with 152 teams from around the country. On May 29th PTC held a webcast to announce the award winners. The top 8 teams would receive cash prizes. At the end of the webcast Apple Pi received the 5th place for the Evergreen and 9th place for the Bishop. Along the way the team members learned new skills, and continued innovating and working as a team during the pandemic.Interested in knowing more about the team or more about the details of the robot designs? Visit their website at ApplePiRobotics.org for more information about the team.

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Apple Pi Robotics Wins Awards in Robots To The Rescue Design Challenge - Zip06.com