As COVID-19 gets worse and worse, we constantly think about vaccinations and other things to stop COVID-19. There was a vaccination being tested in January, and since then, there are no antidotes to this novel disease. There are, however, steps to improving upon the vaccines.
Now, do vaccines really work for COVID-19? Can we use something else? “A common saying in robotics is that robots are best suited for jobs too dirty, dull, or dangerous for humans.” This has brought scientists to try to use robots to solve this situation. Robots are very powerful tools: “’Instead of manual disinfection, which requires workforce mobilization and increases exposure risk to cleaning personnel, autonomous or remote-controlled disinfection robots could lead to cost-effective, fast, and effective disinfection,’ the researchers wrote. ‘New generations of robots, from macro- to microscale, could be developed to navigate high-risk areas and continually work to sterilize all high-touch surfaces.”
The first robot was Stevie. However, this idea didn’t work: “The Stevie robot already had sensors allowing it to navigate independently and stop when it detects the presence of a person. A directed light source that automatically shut down when it detected motion nearby could be a useful feature. Akara toyed with the idea of putting a disinfectant UV-C feature on Stevie, but eventually dropped it when they couldn’t find a satisfactory way to integrate it into the robot’s design.” There needs to be an improvement: “The team began drawing up plans for a new robot that would combine the navigational features they’d designed for Stevie with a UV-C light. The robot wouldn’t have any anthropomorphic [or having human characteristics] features, but would be designed to work alongside humans. They would call this one Violet.”
“Akara has focused on making Violet portable and compact enough to be able to operate in tight, crowded spaces that are otherwise hard to clean: bathrooms, waiting areas, the nooks and crannies of public transit. It also has a protective shield around the back of the light, and motion-detecting sensors so that people don’t have to vacate the area while it’s at work.” This is a very big improvement. Since Violet covered all the mistakes that Stevie had and it also had the features of Stevie, it should be successful.
In conclusion, I think scientists are too slow on inventing. Maybe the schools don’t allow students to have a lot of creativity, but that is another subject to talk about. I still think that they should be much faster at thinking of how to resolve it. At the time of the article, COVID-19 is almost half a year old (about 5-6 months)!