ANAMBRA: Students Of Regina Pacis Sec Sch Design Smart Walking Sticks For The Blind
The innovative ‘Smart Sticks’ creation by students at Regina Pacis Secondary School, Onitsha in Anambra State, has been hailed as a success by members of the visually challenged community.
The students created a smartphone application called the Fake Drug (FD) detector to assist combat counterfeit pharmaceutical items in Nigeria, and they received the Junior Gold Awards at the World Technovation Challenge in the United States of America in 2018.
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Girls from the school have once more distinguished themselves as leaders in robotics and coding by creating smart sticks that can detect impediments up to 120 centimetres away from a blind person.
The Youth Coordinator, Nigeria Association of the Blind (NAB), Anambra State, Chibuzor Obierika, speaking at the launch of the innovative product, said the invention was improved upon its first test.
She said;
After building this project, we noticed it could only sense obstacles horizontally in front of the blind man, so we decided to advance this project. The Smart Sticks can now sense objects from an angle of elevation and an angle of depression.
The Smart Sticks are designed with an input ultrasonic sensor that alerts a blind person of an obstacle not less than 120 centimetres ahead of him or her.
The action is in keeping with the state government’s directive to encourage young talent to innovate.
The Metropolitan Archbishop of the Onitsha Diocese, Most Reverend Valerian Okeke, visited the area, and during his pastoral visit, their creation was on exhibit.
The cleric and the Obi of Onitsha Nnemeka Achebe praised the students for their accomplishments as they unveiled the innovation and gave more than 20 packs of the devices to several handicapped people.
