Imagine that you cannot brush your teeth yourself? A solution could be the 100 per cent hands-free toothbrush, which two robotics students are well on their way to develop. They got the idea in connection with the interdisciplinary project Experts in Teams.
‘The idea was to allow elderly or handicapped persons to be able to brush their teeth without using the hands. The person bites on some sort of dentures which sprays water and fluent tooth paste into the mouth and brushes the teeth with small vibrations’, says Mathias, who wants to be an entrepreneur together with his fellow student Sebastian.
Still a way to go
The two students have just completed their first prototype which is made on a 3D printer and looks a bit like a very advanced set of dentures.
’It still needs a lot of work, before the hands-free toothbrush can be realised. For example it must be smaller and that is something we will work on in connection with our bachelor’s project’, says Sebastian and continues:
‘We also have a plan to develop an app – for both smartphone and web – which allows care assistants to monitor how the teeth are brushed in order to e.g. refill the toothpaste’.
Businesspeople are thrilled
Although Sebastian and Christian have only been working on their project for four months, they have already run their idea past the industry – for example, they were given the chance to tell about the concept, their business plan and ideas for further development at an entrepreneurship competition.
‘Everybody we have talked to think it is a good idea. Several businesspeople believe that the product fulfils a real need, so now we just need to take it to the next level. Next step will be to set up a company and apply for patent’, says Mathias and stresses that the duo have more ideas under way.
Facts
To get a master degree in Robot Systems you study for 2 years on top of a 3 years bachelor degree.
At the master programme you can choose to specialise in either:
- Robotics
- Artificial Intelligence
- Embedded Systems
- Computer Vision