Three female national students from Applied Technology High School in Umm Al Quwain Emirate have designed a robotic arm to help treat patients and ensure that nursing staff are protected from infection.

Engineer Ali Al-Taweel, project supervisor for “Emirates Today”, said the robotic arm project for taking medical swabs was developed by students Mira Rashid Al Ali, Jawahar Khanem Al Ali and Noura Saif Al-Khafli. Providing the health sector with ideas that improve the working environment and maintain the lives of health workers and reduce their infection with infectious diseases that can be spread when sampling from patients, making the work more sustainable and productive in all its stages.

The project is a robotic arm to take swabs to easily and safely detect disease and infections, thereby helping to protect and save staff in hospitals and health centers (the first line of defense). Take samples efficiently and easily.

Al-Taweel pointed out that the project consists of several parts, including an Arduino microcontroller that remotely controls the robot arm, mouth swabs, test tubes, Vex robot parts, a distance sensor and a 9V battery.

He said the project cost 1,000 dirhams in its prototype and would take about three months to design and complete.

He pointed out that the project team participated in the National Science, Technology and Innovation Festival recently organized by the Ministry of Education at Expo 2020 Dubai and was appreciated by the competition jury of the festival.