*ADVANCED STUDIO - Recommended for High School Students, Post-High School Gap Year Students and/or Returning NuVu Students*

The Earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Katrina, and the Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami focused the world’s attention on the massive destruction that emerges from natural disasters. The sites of these major natural disasters - fiery acres of remote forest, earthquake-shattered cities, tornado-ravaged towns, and contaminated nuclear plants - typically prove extremely dangerous for humans. When conditions are too perilous, robots can take a leading role - coming to the rescue in life-threatening situations.

This Studio will put you in the front seat of designing the “brains” or decision-making intelligence of robots that could save thousands if not millions of lives in a disaster situation. How can robots work with firefighters, emergency medical doctors, or disaster relief/emergency workers? Based on the environmental, behavioral, and equipment needs of these groups, students will build a basic robot and then focus on the artificial intelligence or programming of the robot to improve safety and add functionality in a given situation. Students will learn the basics of electronics and microcontrollers, while delving deep into computer programming. They will also learn how to program external sensors (from simple switches and buttons to heat/temperature, light, gas, touch) and actuators (such as motors, lights, speakers, solenoids, valves, fans) to allow the robots to make decisions and function autonomously in the given environment.

Register here!

Focus Skills/Subjects/Technologies:

  Design

  Physics (Electricity, Magnetism)

  Engineering

  Programming

  Electronics

   Robotics (Arduino, Sensors, Actuators)

   Digital Fabrication (Laser-cutting, 3d Printing)

   3d Modeling

Prerequisites:

• Enrolling students must be any of the following:
  • High School Student
  • Post-High School Gap Year Student
  • Returning NuVu Student
• Students must have prior programming experience

The Sensors

High altitude mountaineers push their bodies to the limits of what is humanly possible, often placing themselves on the brink of death. However, when hikers suffer from hypoxia, known as altitude sickness, they often fail to recognize the symptoms. This is due to the fact that one of the main side effects of hypoxia is severe confusion and a lack of mental clarity. By simply recognizing whether or not they have hypoxia, a hiker may be able to save his or her own life.

Our product gives hikers this crucial information by using altitude, temperature, pulse, and blood oxygen content sensors. These sensors create a cohesive image of whether or not the hiker should continue hiking as normal, take a break, or descend from the mountain. The controller and other main electronics are housed inside an armband. On this armband is a simple and easy to read display which notifies hikers if they should continue hiking or not. The sensors are situated in a glove at the hiker's fingertips to collect accurate data. The first of two temperature sensors is placed at the hiker's finger to detect hypothermia. The second temperature sensor is placed in the armband, and paired with the pressure sensor it is able to measure altitude. Finally, we use pulse and oxygen saturation sensors to measure the users pulse and blood oxygen content. By calculating the drop in blood oxygen saturation as the hiker ascends the mountain, hypoxia can be detected. The pulse sensor provides another benchmark of the hiker's vitals. 

The device checks for several conditions, and in the program assigns all the sensors a value of 0, 1, or 2. If the value is 0 it indicates that the hiker is not suffering from this condition. If the value is 1 it indicates that they should take a break, and a value of 2 indicates that they should descend. The program selects the highest alert value from all the sensors and uses this to detect the user's health.

Final Product

Our final product is a glove and armpiece combination that incorporates the aforementioned sensors. They have been tightly packed into a wrist strap and with very slim finger sensors as to add a minimal amount of bulk to the hiker's already very bulky equipment.The collective purpose of these sensors is to alert the hiker of any health threats he or she may face. The device notifies the wearer by means of the three LEDs that are placed in the top of the casing on the arm. If the green light is on, the wearer is ok to continue climbing. If the yellow light in the middle is on, the climber should stop before continuing on further. If the red light is on, the climber could be approaching a dangerous situation, and should descend from the mountain.

The device does this by constantly checking the readouts from all four sensors. If the sensors detect that any of the readouts are out of the preset baseline readings, then they will notify the device, which could cause the device to change its alert setting.

The sensors are attached to the inside of the glove via velcro attachments. They then wire directly into the armpiece, where the readouts are calculated, and the overall response is displayed in the LEDs.

We wanted to help firefighters before, during, and after a fire by evaluating and helping their breathing rate. We chose to help firefighters’ breathing rate due to their strenuous conditions that are typically overlooked by the general public. Numerous firefighters have said that their heart rate can go from complete rest to dangerous levels in a matter of seconds. We decided to create a neck piece with a stethoscope on one side (to measure the heart rate) with a vibration notification when the pulse is too high (over 120). This vibration acts as a warning to the firefighter to start breathing exercises and to be aware that their pulse has been elevated for too long. In medical emergencies, if the heart rate stays at an elevated level doctors can perform carotid artery massage.

Rubbing the carotid sinus stimulates an area in the artery wall that contains nerve endings. These nerves respond to changes in blood pressure and are capable of slowing the heart rate. The response to this simple procedure often slows a rapid heart rate (for example, atrial flutter or atrial tachycardia), it important to massage in a circular motion for 5 seconds on one side of the neck (underneath the jaw). 

In addition, we also created a carbon monoxide sensor that will the read carbon monoxide in the air and will warn the person through a buzzer when the carbon monoxide in the air is beginning to become too dangerous. Carbon monoxide as well as other numerous chemicals are in a fire’s smoke and are perilous to humans. This sensor later can be adjusted to read more hazardous chemicals in the smoke which will help firefighters lower their chances of cancer and other illnesses. Firefighters are frequently exposed to significant concentrations of hazardous materials including carbon monoxide, benzene, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen cyanide, aldehydes, hydrogen chloride, dichlorofluoromethane, and particulates. Our aim was to prevent this exposure to these biomedical dangers.