Coimbatore boy a regional finalist in Google contest

July 31, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 05:36 am IST - COIMBATORE:

A 16-year-old Coimbatore boy is among the regional finalists of the Google Science Fair, which attracts thousands of applications from all over the world.

A student of the Indian Public School here, Nishanth Kumar has come up with a mouse for the physically challenged.

His ‘hands-free mouse,’ made with off-the-shelf parts, will perform all the functions of an optical mouse.

Fair

The Google Science Fair is a global online science and technology competition open to individuals and teams from ages 13 to 18.

They formulate a hypothesis, perform an experiment, and present their skills. Prizes would be given depending on the student’s presentation, question, hypothesis, research, experiment, data, observations, and conclusion.

Project

Explaining his project, Nishanth says the inspiration came from a visit to a local home for the differently abled on his birthday.

They were unable to use computers which he felt was almost a necessity now.

The solutions, he says, are prohibitively expensive as they cost around $1,000.

To overcome the cost, he says he uses an IMU for tracking head-movement and a sound/camera sensor for breath/blink input for mouse clicks.

Such a device can be created for approximately $21.91, an almost 50-time price-reduction over most present head/eye-mice, he claims. The boy says his human interface device (HID) mouse is a much cheaper option to the existing alternatives and will grant computer access to thousands of people with disabilities due to Klumpke-paralysis, hand-deformities, and others.

Easy

Its ease-of-use lets people to learn in no time, enabling them to get better jobs, access Internet, and make their lives better.

“As the device is currently a prototype, I want to make it professional by modularising it, permanently-soldering all the wires, creating a stronger-casing, improving the aesthetics and adding an automatic-reset.

I hope that one day, everyone in need will get this device. After all, it could change the world for the differently abled.”

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