For as far as I can recollect I have passionately hated the idea of people walking too close to each other in India. Back in childhood, it used to be a literal nightmare for me whenever I went to the old Jaipur bazaars with my mom. Hours before going to the crowded market, I’d dread the idea of people brushing past me (and each other). Why was this normal? Then I grew up and learned about the co-relation between Indians and personal space: it does not exist!
Well, this must explain why while I rue the pandemic, I have been sadistically enjoying the idea of social distancing. While we keep busting our heads about people’s inability to maintain distance during the pandemic, the truth perhaps is that most of us aren’t wired that way. From the looks of it, this sounds like the problem extends way beyond our country. From people flocking Swedish beaches to the Marine Drive visuals right after ‘Unlock phase 1’ was declared, clearly, getting people to practice social distancing has proved to be tougher than we expected. And while I have been cribbing about this since forever, 15-year-old Neha Shukla actually decided to take charge of the situation and do something about it.
Alarmed by the coronavirus pandemic spreading like wildfire, Neha recently applied to the ‘Girls With Impact’ programme in the United States so as to work on the problem at hand. A very prestigious programme, ‘Girls With Impact’ is known for teaching entrepreneurial skills to young girls. It was a matter of great concern for Neha that people weren’t following social distancing properly and thus decided to work on it. “I wanted to do something about it and I set out to create a social distancing device that utilises ultrasonic sensors and microprocessors to detect when a person crosses that six-feet detection range and alert the user through vibrating and beeping,” she shared in an interview with a leading daily.
The device developed by Neha is actually a cap that starts vibrating and beeping as soon as the six-feet perimeter is breached. Explaining how the device works, she further shared, “It’s a microprocessor-based device that’s embedded in a hat. Whenever somebody crosses that six feet range, the programme and the microprocessor are alerted. On the inside, there’s an ultrasonic sensor, a microprocessor, a buzzer and a nine-volt battery. I coded a programme that causes these ultrasonic sensors to send out these pulses (ultrasonic waves). Now, when these waves collide with a person within that six-feet detection range, this raw data calculation is converted to a system that it would understand and hence alert the user.”
Neha started working on the project in April this year. She had her prototype ready by June and recently featured on the New York Times and on the Nasdaq screen for her contribution to mitigation strategies. While of Indian origin, Neha is actually born and brought up in New York. However, she looks forward to visiting India as soon as the pandemic is over.
She is currently working on optimising the design. “I am also working on developing a Bluetooth app that will send the same notification to your phone as well and you can keep a track of that history,” she shares.
Now that’s some serious genius at play, right?
Featured Image: Twitter