Differently-abled students feted for 'Smart Pedestrian Crossing' project

Jamil Khan, Senior Reporter

A series of events as part of the National Competition for Artificial Intelligence & Robotics in UAE Innovation Month was held and a number of students from various centres took part to demonstrate their skills in different learning fields. The contest was organised by the Ministry of Education all over the UAE lately.

The team of Dubai People of Determination Centre under the Ministry of Community Development received the Judges Award in the National Competition for Artificial Intelligence & Robotics 2020 known as (First Lego League-FLL).

This was part of the competition of the centre’s students for sustainable technological ideas and the participation of the Ministry in the innovative project ‘Smart Pedestrian Crossing’ Project 2020.

The team of Dubai People of Determination Centre consisting of 3 students was the only one which was honoured with this award among other People of Determination teams.

A student explains his project to the visitors.

The people of determination winning team consists of the students: Khalaf Al Zafeen – Autism Category, Salem Saeed – Multi Disability and Mubarak Basem – Intellectual Disability.

The three students participated in an innovative project called “Smart Pedestrian Crossing” with exclusive specifications such as an acoustic sensor to serve visually impaired categories, steel poles connected to the pedestrian crossing area to provide kinetic support for the people of determination and ramps for easy ascending and descending of wheelchairs on the pedestrian crossing area.

The competition stage in the competition included several evaluation phases beginning with the presentation of the idea by the students of the innovation team, programming and designing a robot to perform (15 tasks) on the competition table in "only two minutes and 15 seconds," and working with a team spirit at the time of the installation, programming and designing the robot in order to ensure the efficiency of the robot.

In another development, the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) fully automated several public parking services relating to senior citizens and people of determination and started offering them online via (www.rta.ae) as of March 2020.

The step is part of RTA’s continuous endeavour to deliver best-in-class services to beneficiaries in line with the transformation to smart services. The move is in line with the directives of the leadership to cut down on the number of visits to customer happiness centres.