Member Article

Coders develop leg brace for patients

Celso Martinho, SAPO general manager, explains how Codebits winners NeLo combine wearable tech with medical solutions and how inspiring a younger generation is a must when it comes to innovation.

Wearable medical devices, robotics and gaming innovations were all ideas to come out of this year’s International Codebits event in Portugal. For 3 days tech enthusiasts, from developers, designers, coders and programmers, across Europe took part in demos, talks, workshops and an international 24-hour competition, to showcase emerging talent.

Wearable technology is becoming more popular with Amazon even opening up a specific online store last month so consumers could compare prices on robotics, smart watches and fitness trackers. However, it is this new innovation that can actually help society from a medical perspective.

One of the most impressive examples of wearable technology to come out of Codebits was Team NeLo, who met during the event and, who are now working on bringing a material leg brace to market. The project won one of the major competitions at the event, and will now receive help and guidance from event creator SAPO, the leading internet project and portal in Portugal, working to inspire young people so that they can set up their own companies.

The team, including Basilio Vieira, Pedro Leite and Carolina Correia met on the first day and they only had 48-hours to come up with a new piece of tech using coding. The team designed a flexible leg brace, inspired from Pedro’s father, who suffered from polio and had to wear an uncomfortable metal frame. After some research, the team discovered one in 200 polio infections lead to irreversible paralysis (usually in the legs) and that although cases of the disease has decreased by more than 99 percent since 1988, there is according to the British Polio Fellowship, 120,000 people living in the UK with the effects of Polio today. The disease remains a widespread problem in countries like Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

NeLo is a medical solution that saves patients from wearing metal braces. The digital system uses sensor data to help polio patients, and even people with sports injuries, by locking and unlocking their knees as they walk. It is a great example of where wearable technology can be used to benefit patients and provide medical solutions.

The NeLo system has an open-source design using BITalino sensors and 3D printed components, and is designed to switch between being rigid or flexible depending on whether the person wearing it is walking, standing or sitting. It looks like a flexible metal leg break but the technology can be incorporated into a prosthetic. It includes a foot pressure censor and a gyroscope worn near the hip, which is then paired with an Arduino board to analyse the person’s position. This data is fed to servo motors that loosen and tighten the material. Inside the mechanism, a sand-paper like material is flanked by soft textile.

The team beat hundreds of entries to get through to the pitching round where they only had 90 seconds to pitch on stage their design. NeLo went on to win for a number of reasons. It was a unique project because it solves a social problem, it uses a lot of ideas and technology that was presented during the event and made use of Codebits partners.

Basilio and his team are now looking to make their solution and distribute it via an open software solution platform so that it is not costly for others to take on board. He said this was the team’s contribution to making the world a bit better!

The relationship between SAPO and academia is paramount. At a University level, we have protocols with several of the major national schools with our SAPO Labs program. This aims to give students and researchers access to some of SAPO’s data, infrastructure and knowledge, to research and create new and innovative projects that are not purely theoretical but with real world data.

At this year’s Codebits we presented UCodebits to reinforce the working relationship we have between universities and industry. This included live streaming of the event, workshops and talks to some of the universities we work with and the opportunity for 100 students and teachers with specific skills in electronics, robotics and specialized programming taking part in the event to share knowledge and experiences.

The event once again reinforced the pioneerism and the innovative capacity of SAPO Labs as a design factory for new ideas and establishes an indispensable connection with the academic world through the development of a wide range of technological solutions.

The event stood out due to the presentation of technologically outstanding and innovative solutions in terms of new technologies, programming and the internet. Team NeLo and more than a 100 other teams reinforced physical computing and hardware with wearable technology, 3D printing, digital manufacturing, augmented hardware and simulations, robotics and drones, and virtual reality retro computing.

Runners-up also included a spelling app, Spelling Loom, to teach languages to pupils aged eight to sixteen and game designer Pew, Pew, Pew, which used a combination of the Raspberry Pi hooked up to an Oculus Rift head set and a gun controller to create a virtual reality rig with potential applications in training for dangerous fields like fire fighting. All examples of young innovators creating new designs at Codebits while using available technology.

Technology has never been more accessible for young innovators, but more support is needed to see this entrepreneurial spirit through to the highly demanding technology sector. The world should seek to replicate the kind of practical and inspiring environment created by events like Codebits to support the next wave in tech talent.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Condeco Software .