Students of the Regina Pacis Secondary School, Onitsha, Anambra State
Students in Anambra school create ‘smart walking stick’ for blind people
Students of the Regina Pacis Secondary School, Onitsha, in Anambra State, have invented innovative ‘Smart Sticks’ to enable visually-impaired people to move around without hindrance.
The students had previously created a smartphone application called the Fake Drug (FD) detector to assist combat counterfeit pharmaceutical items in Nigeria; also, they received the Junior Gold Awards at the World Technovation Challenge in the United States of America in 2018.
This time, students of the school have invented smart sticks that can detect obstacles not less than 120 centimetres away from a blind person.
Speaking at the introduction of the ground-breaking innovation, Chibuzor Obierika, said that the invention has advanced from its initial trial. Chibuzor is the youth coordinator for the Nigeria Association of the Blind (NAB), Anambra State.
“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,” she said.
“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 move is in line with the state government mandate to support innovations among young talent.
Their invention was displayed during the pastoral visit of the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Onitsha Diocese, Most Reverend Valerian Okeke.
The Smart Sticks were reviewed by some visually impaired persons at the event to show the product’s effectiveness.
