Modern Times with a Modern Twist: IIT Gandhinagar Students Invent Feeding Machine
The objective of the machine is different from the scene portrayed in Modern Times, the students, to help their Cerebral Palsy affected friend with a painless eating experience, the ‘Foodbuddy’ machine was developped.
Remember the feeding machine for the factory workers in the 1936 satirical film Modern Times? Well, the idea has been developped in reality to make a similar machine with more modern technologies. Two students, Chris Francis and Praveen Ventakesh from the Indian Institute of Technology - IIT Gandhinagar who have developped a machine that will help you to eat without using your hands.
The device is named ‘Foodbuddy.’ The main objective to develop the machine, however, differs from the objective shown in Modern Times (1936). The machine is expected to help people physically unable to use arms or have motor diseases to eat conveniently. The device is compatible with AI apps like Google Assistance and Alexa to conduct voice-based commands to the machine.
They got the Idea of the device after one friend of the inventors was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, they decided to help him eating without inconvenience. Both the Developer has said that they wanted to work for their friend as his pain moved them.
Venkatesh, who is an electrical engineering student, has informed that the device runs with the internet. A user can command through the Personal Assistant apps Google Assistant or Alexa to the device and the device places the food inside the user’s mouth very efficiently and comfortably.
The inventors have filed the patent for the device. The device which cost more than 2,000 rupees to roll out will expectedly see production expense cuts when produced at the mass level. The inventors have said that the price of the machine will not be more than 3,000.
Francis, the student of Computer Science Engineering (CSE) in IITG has said that even though alternatives are available in the market, they come very expensive and out of reach for many people.
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Prof Madhu Vadali, Prof Nithin George, Prof Vineet Vashisth, Prof Vashista are the faculties who helped them to develop the device and the students have also expressed their gratitude towards them and said that if they did not work with them day and night, the device could not be developped.
Their innovation ‘Foodbuddy’ was featured in the 2nd edition of ‘Invent@IITGN’ event for innovation organised by IIT Gandhinagar.
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A total of 28 students from nine IITs across the country were selected including IIT Bombay, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Madras, IIT Dhanbad, IIT Gandhinagar, IIT Goa, IIT Dharwad, IIT Guwahati, and IIT Palakkad.
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