'Keep Me Safe', a ray of hope for senior citizens, disabled

Technology is advancing at an incredible pace. As a result, the common man’s way of living has turned from a state of comfort to more of an ultra-sophisticated state.

The lifestyle of people has become more mechanical, hectic and stressful. The common cry of even an ordinary man is the lack of time. United, big and joint families have turned nuclear.

Gone are the days when people spent time with the older members of their family. Life of the elders is now a burden because of the obligation of complete dependency.

As a result, the life of the elders and the disabled is in jeopardy and there is a huge increase in the trend of pushing them silently into old age homes.

On the other hand, people who are fond of elders cannot see safe methods to look after them when they are not at home or stationed in metropolitan cities. Burglars frequently target houses where the lonely and the disabled live.

In order to curb this menace, students of Shri Madhwa Vadiraja Institute of Technology & Management (SMVITM), Bantakal, have developed a simple yet effective and innovative solution.

Whenever a visitor turns up at the house of an elder or disabled, he/she is at first obligated to press the specially designed doorbell where their fingerprint shall be secretly scanned within a fraction of a second and it shall be matched with all the fingerprints of known and familiar people that are stored previously in a well-maintained database.

If a match is found, then the identity of the visitor shall be made known to the person inside by virtue of an app, which in turn synthesises text data into audio speech and it shall be broadcasted through a powerful speaker fitted inside the house.

If the fingerprint does not match with that of the ones in the database, a camera, which is secretly embedded in the entrance door, will immediately capture the face of the unidentified person and send it to the guardian. Now the guardian, in turn, sends an alert message saying
‘Do not open the door’, which is again broadcasted in the form of an audio signal.

There will also be a secret device that is embedded in the door, which keeps in check for any suspicious movements round the clock and gives a loud audio signal if there are any. Thus at the outset, ‘Keep Me Safe!’ is a cost-effective system, which ensures the safety of the old and disabled when left alone at home, and also gives peace of mind to the guardian at work.

It also strives to prevent the social menace of dumping the elders into old age homes, said Sushmitha Baliga, Srishti, Ranjani Rao and Amrutha Acharya, who were part of this project.

The project was developed under the guidance of Prof B N Ramachandra, Department of CSE, SMVITM, Bantakal.

Garland weaving machine

Adrutha H R, Akshith Kumar, Amruth S Shetty and B Balakrishna Shetty of the eighth-semester Mechanical Engineering branch have developed a prototype of semi-automated garland weaving machine, under the guidance of Sudhir, faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Indian culture shares a close connection with flowers. Flower garlands have an important and traditional role during every festival as Hindu deities are decorated with garlands made from different flowers (often jasmine) and leaves.

Garland weaving is a work that requires skilled labourers and it is time-consuming.

The present generation is getting less curious towards garland weaving. In order to minimise the complexity in the process of weaving of a garland, a prototype for automated knotting mechanism has been developed.

The prototype is made up of simple and easily available components and the operator need not have any experience to use this machine.

This prototype can be further developed to automated feeding mechanism and it can be expected to produce a fully automated garland weaving machine with a higher production rate.