Students of the 1st Experimental Primary School of Thessaloniki (affiliated to AUTH), they designed an important structure, one robotwhich helps visually impaired people to shop at the supermarket.
To build the robot the students distinguished themselves, as at the opening ceremony of the 16th Informatics Student Conference, they were awarded the “Ioannis Papaefstathiou Student Innovation Award”.
The experimental construction includes a pram (Lego® ), which works like a trolley in a store. It was created and planned by the students of the School’s Educational Robotics, STEAM, Physical computing Group, with Informatics teacher Konstantinos Delistavrou in charge.
“We consider the award we won very important and it was a great honor to represent our school, the 1st Experimental Primary School of Thessaloniki. We have created a structure that helps people with visual impairments. We were very tired in its implementation, but the result was so enchanting that we were awarded”, students participating in the Club told APE-MPE.
THE idea, as Mr. Delistavrou explained, came from the communication in the classroom, while his own experience – having worked as a trainer for people with vision problems – contributed to the realization of the construction. “This is a pilot construction, as in student competitions the constructions are pilot, but it is also a proposal that could evolve into something that can be used in practice,” added the teacher.
14 students of the 5th and 6th grades of elementary school participate in the Club, while in some cases students from neighboring schools are also accepted. Students deal with the practical application of the Principles of physics, engineering, and IT.
How the robotic assistant works in the supermarket
The robotic cart stops at specific, black-marked spots on the floor, using a distance sensor to recognize the marks. The camera then reads the label of a product in Greek Braille. First, the imaginary rectangle in which the Braille word is enclosed is detected. The Braille characters are then recognized one by one, with the help of six circular discs, one for each dot of the Braille character. Each disk if found on the black color of a dot contributes a number to the total sum which gives a unique number for each Braille character. The word is then synthesized and the word is heard with a pre-recorded message from the computer.
Magnets depending on their orientation help the controller in the cart to recognize whether a product is available or not. If the product is available, then the customer proceeds to purchase it.
This is done by turning on the LED light on the cart and wirelessly sending the word describing the product to the shelf controller. In this case the shelf controller displays a confirmation on its screen and reduces the stock.
At this year’s 16th Informatics Student Conference, the 1st Experimental Primary School of Thessaloniki presented a construction that includes a variety of robotic and physical computer interface automations. Its purpose is to automate the loading and unloading of containers on ships.
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