Kasapin40 is the name of a team of young people that deal with LEGO robotics. 16-year-old Vassil Vassilev from the National High School of Natural Science and Mathematics in Sofia says that robots do have their implementation in everyday life. Vassil is a part of this country’s National Robotics Team, along with other two boys and two girls. The team has recently reached the European finals of the First Lego League – the largest robotics contest for students in the world. Their two mentors Petar Petrov and Tsvetko Trendafilov from SAP Labs Bulgaria provoked their curiosity. “You don’t have to be Steve Jobs to invent something useful,” Vassil is convinced. “You need a team of few, who are to find the solution of a problem together.” Their team offered an interesting solution to one of the most common problems that elderly people face – high blood pressure. Those boys and girls do believe that their idea could save lives. They developed a project for a bracelet-designed device, which constantly monitors blood pressure, sending data to certain medical centers. “This year’s contest was subjected Senior Solutions. Our research showed that more people died of high blood pressure last year than of cancer,” Vassil explains. Martin Shalamanov from the same team gives us more details on the monitoring device.

“Our idea is this bracelet to measure the blood pressure and the pulse each hour or two. In case of significant changes the device will start to measure more often and if the problem remains, it will get in touch with ER, the GP or relatives, depending on the settings. The goal is timely help to be provided, since many elderly people live alone and would remain helpless in case of a heart attack, for instance. Statistics says that many deaths are caused not by the attack itself, but are due to the delayed medical assistance.”

The Kasapin40 team goes on to say that the early usage of the bracelet will provide an early diagnosis of hypertension. This problem is often discovered later, Martin explains, when it has caused other problems and the complications are already irreversible. This means pain for the person and more money from the Healthcare Fund for expensive medicines, Vassil says.

“Above all, money will be saved from expensive medicines. Then, we talked with ER experts and those said that 20 – 30 percent of the high blood pressure signals were fake. Sometimes people can’t even measure it on their own with the old devices they use. Our idea is that the bracelet should remind the person to get in touch with his or her GP when a blood pressure of 160 is measured. However, if the device shows 180 or more, ER will be called. Thus the number of fake signals will be reduced and more money will be saved from this pointless travels of the medical teams. We also envisage an SOS button that shall be used in cases of real emergencies. At the same time we thought on an adequate fine, in case someone decides to call ER for fun.”

The boys and girls have almost developed the software of a system that such devices can be connected with. “The system may receive information on the hour, the level of blood pressure and the location of the elderly person via a GPS,” Marin goes on to say. However, experts in microelectronics are needed for the construction of the prototype, the two young enthusiasts admit. They are convinced that if the serial production kicks off, the bracelet won’t be an expensive one and each person will be able to buy it. That is why the duo hopes to find investors and to turn their project into reality.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev