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A pair of Canadian students who manufacture a simple and inexpensive prosthetic arm won the grand prize at the Microsoft Imagine Cup, a global startup competition that the company holds annually. SmartArm will receive $ 85,000, a mentoring session with CEO Satya Nadella, and other goodies from Microsoft . But they were far from the only team worthy of the dozens who came to Redmond for the competition.
The Imagine Cup is an event that I look forward to because it consists only of young intelligent students, usually engineers and designers themselves. Yet, the "semi-finals" I attended, I saw two young Pakistani women seeking to reduce stillbirth rates with a new pregnancy monitor, an automated eye. -a control device that can be deployed anywhere from and used by anyone, and a standalone monitor for water tanks in drought-stricken areas. When I had their age, I lived at my mother's, becoming very good at Mario Kart for the SNES and working as a kindergarten teacher.
Even Nadella bowed to their ambitions when she appeared on stage at the final event this morning.
"Last night, I thought," What advice can I give to people who have accomplished so much at such a young age? "And I said, I should go back to when I had my age and do great things … Then I realized … I certainly would not have made these finals."
That made you laugh, but (with apologies to Nadella) it's probably true. Students now have incredible resources at their disposal and, as most teams have demonstrated, they make excellent use of these resources.
SmartArm, in particular, combines a clever approach with advanced technology in such a simple way
The problem that they consider to require a new approach is that of prosthetic arms, which like they emphasize it, are often non-functional (think of a plastic arm or a simple clamp) or very expensive (a mechanical arm costs tens of thousands). Why can not we be both?
Their solution is extremely interesting and timely: a relatively simple 3D printed forearm and hand, which have their own vision system. A built-in camera in the palm captures an image of the object that the user is aiming to pick up, and classifies it quickly – an apple, a keychain, a pen – and selects the correct plug for that object.
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It is still extremely limited – you probably can not twist a doorknob or grab a knife or a fork, etc. But for many everyday tasks, this could be useful. And the idea of putting the camera in the palm is a high risk, high efficiency. It is of course blocked when you pick up the object, but what should you see during this time? You turn off the handle to lower the cup and the camera is exposed again to monitor the next task.
Keep in mind that this is not meant to seriously replace a universal hand. But it offers smart and simple functionality for people who would otherwise have had to use a clip arm or the like. And according to the team, it should cost less than $ 100. How this is possible to do, including the arm sensor is not clear to me, but I'm not the one who built a bionic arm, so I'm going to put it to that. Even if they miss that 50%, it would still be a huge boon, honestly.
There is an optional subscription that would allow the arm to improve as it learns more about your habits and objects that you regularly encounter – this could also be used to improve other SmartArms.
As for its appearance – rather robotic – the team defended them according to their own reactions of the amputees: "They prefer to be interrogated", hey, where is "What is arrived at your arm? "But a more realistic set of fingers is also under development.
The team said that they were looking at the origin of venture capital financing, but that they ended up getting a grant. ; they have already aroused the interest of a number of Canadian and American institutions, and winning the Imagine Cup will almost certainly propel them towards greater visibility in the field.
My own questions would be about sustainability, washing and the kind of things that really have to be tested in real world scenarios. What if the lens of the camera is dirty or scratched? Will there be color options for people who do not want to have white "skin" on their arm? What is the support model? What about insurance?
SmartArm wins the grand prize, but the finalists and category winners also get a lot of good things. I plan to get in touch with SmartArm and several other teams from the competition to find out more and hear about their progress. I was very impressed not only by the engineering prowess, but also by the humanism and thought that were presented this year. Nadella sums it up best:
"One of the things I always think of is that this competition improves the game, does not it?" He said in the final. "People around the world are thinking about how I use technology, how can I learn new concepts, but more importantly, how can I solve some of these unmet and unreported needs? The impact that you can all have is enormous, the opportunity is huge.But I also believe that there is an incredible sense of responsibility, or a need for accountability that we all must exercise collectively. given the opportunity that has been given to us. "
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