Pop-Sci Core77 Design Challenge S p e e d - 1/20/03

Description of Design

What is speed ? Swiftness, fastness -- (a rate (usually rapid) at which something happens Rate of change, any action with respect to time, the shorter any process takes the faster it is considered. In this project life savers, the concept of speed is approached from a different perspective. What is the use of SPEED in things without LIFE itself ? Well I was trying to address the very question, how precious life is and how speed can play a critical role in life and death situations. There is not a single day which goes without accidents. In 2002, there were an estimated 6,316,000 car accidents in the USA alone. There were about 2.9 million injuries and 42,815 people were killed in auto accidents in 2002. Over 85,000 road fatalities are reported in Indian every year, making it the most dangerous nation to drive in,according to statistics released by the Loss Prevention Association of India. In most of the cases the victim either has a permanent deformity or even dies because of delayed treatment. Life savers are primarily going to target this niche. The faster the treatment the more the chance of survival. As the term clearly indicates, LIFE SAVERS save peoples lives by the mere fact that they SPEED up the process of treatment. Life savers are a system of devices which are linked to each other and to hospitals. They comprise of a tag, a ban-aid, capsule and paramedics pad. The personal tag is an ideal situation where every one has one and in case of emergency it serves of great importance. In case of an accident and if the person is conscious, he can notify the paramedic and the nearest hospital and they can retrieve all the data’s required for the treatment ( like blood group, allergic to drugs …. ) and the victims medical history, and if the person is unconscious and has the tag the paramedic can down load relevant information on to his pad from the tag. Incase a person forgets to wear a tag the paramedic after reaching the site, has a band aid and a capsule, which helps him in the process. The ban aid when stuck to the victims body will give details such as blood group, the drugs which the victim is allergic to etc there by saving on precious time wasted on analysis required before the treatment. It is not necessary that all the people involved in an accident are critical, few people might have minor injuries. The ban-aid when stuck to the persons body can be assigned a different color depending on the criticality of the victim so that one can easily demarcate an proceed with the treatment. The capsule is used by the patients as well as the paramedic. For eg : In case of diabetic patients the blood sugar level is monitored by the capsule and injects insulin as and when required. It will of great help for people who are likely to have heart attacks etc. Paramedic pad, as the very term indicate, is a device mainly used by paramedic. One can retrieve data’s from the ban aid, the tag and the capsule placed on the victim suing this pad. The device is also networked to all the hospitals so that he knows the closest place to get in time for further treatment and also send relevant information’s required by the doctors at the hospital before the patients arrival. Technology used - Capillary electro-phoresis ( where liquids are decomposed into their component parts in electric field ),bio chips, molecular diagnostics, which will do the analysis and the data transferred using wireless-lan, blue tooth and infra-red signals. Materials used - Intelligent fabric, silicon rubber, flexible screens. Reference. New Value News, No:13, Philips design, July 2002 Pictures of the future, SIEMENS, spring 2003