Chief Minister of Goa Pramod Sawant felicitated the entire team of Atal Tinker laboratory (ATL) of K.B. Hegdewar High school for taking efforts in redesigning the F24 face shield during lockdown period by innovating and helping the community around.
“Back on 1 February 2020, while the country was still coming to terms with its first COVID-19 case, the students from the ATL had developed a coronavirus tracking app that provided realtime hyperlocalized coronavirus statistics which also notifies the user’s distance from the nearest coronavirus case,” said Alumni of K.B. Hegdewar High school, Hrishikesh.
The app is available at www.coronatracker.in. The tracking tool, endorsed by NITI Aayog and Atal Innovation Mission, now has 3.8 million users, he informed.
Engineer and alumnus from Goa Engineering College, Devansh Cholera, and his team had created an Excel repository containing all delivery contacts of grocery and milk suppliers and pharmacies. “During the initial days of the lockdown as we worried about the availability of grocery and procurement of essentials, the alumni along with a team of youngsters conceptualized the Goa Delivery app,” he said.
However, as accessing an Excel sheet would be tough for the public, the project was given to Dr. KB Hedgewar’s ATL. Class nine students, Sohail Bhandari and Parth Sambary along with a team of alumni including Hrishikesh, Sanket, and Yashwant Rivankar developed the app ‘Goa Delivery’ which provided an area-wise list of stores and organizations delivering groceries, milk and medicines at people’s doorsteps. The app hit about 27000 users.
“Collaborating with Swedish 3D printing community, 3DVerkstan, we redesigned a face shield with optimizations that highly reduced the print time and improved structural composition that was stronger, ergonomic, and reusable,” ATL in charge Chintamani Shirodkar said.
Two days prior to the lockdown, Dr. K. B. Hedgewar High School’s Headmaster Shri. Vilas Satarkar and ATL-Incharge Mr. Chintamani Shirodkar along with ATL Mentor Hrishikesh Bhandari, decided to create and donate 3D printed face shields to the healthcare sector.
“Our biggest Achievement and Satisfaction is that we could involve ATL Schools and ATL Students, Start-ups, and others, providing Honorary Services and experiencing the power of community manufacturing and maker spirit,” said the Principal of the School, Vilas Sattarkar.
Until 28 April, team Hedgewar ATL has fulfilled its commitment of Supplying Free of Cost 1000nos F24 Shields to the Department of Health, Govt. of Goa, through the Medical Stores Depot, Campal, Panaji; 100nos to CISF at Goa Airport; 100nos Goa Waste Management Corporation, 30nos GMC, 10nos ASILO, Mapusa, 10nos Old Goa Quarantine center.Team ATL requests all to visit www.faceshield.ml for the real-time status of the F24 activity. The students are also working on their projects from home which range from app development to 3D printing.
“The students are also given courses on Basics of programming using Python which has almost 78 students. The Course was not only restricted to the Hedgewar ATL students but also others too. The same course has completed 3 lessons so far. Recently a course on 3D printing is also published which will have almost 78 students by Saturday,” the principal said.
All the courses provided by Hedgewar ATL is designed in such a way that it can be accessed at any time without the requirement of ongoing internet connectivity, allowing students to enroll and attend the classes offline and without any difficulties.
“Along with these, the students have also attended the online classes on game development and app development provided by Atal Innovation Mission which has helped our students on understanding the development and deployment of the apps and games to the public,” Vilas Sattarkar said.
