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By APD writer Alice
Seeing the distribution of charity rice poses risks of coronavirus infection, a 35-year-old man in Ho Chi Minh City, the southern metropolis of Vietnam, has invented an automatic rice distributing machine that people call the "rice ATM".
In the past two days, the automatic rice distributing machine of Tuan Anh, director of an electronic lock company on Vuon Lai street, Tan Phu district has always been operating at full capacity. The owner of the "rice ATM " shared that, since the beginning of the outbreak, he had seen many individuals and organizations presenting gifts, rice, noodles and others to the poor but the direct give-receive method poses risks of disease infection. Along with that, people gathering at one place to receive gifts lead to social disorder. Therefore, he came up with the idea of creating an automatic rice distributing machine.
Taking advantage of the equipment available in his electronic lock business, Tuan Anh and three technicians took only one day to make the machine. "The situation is quite urgent, we can't order equipment anywhere, so we removed the motor in the company's lock testing machine to make this rice distributor," said Tuan Anh.
The "rice ATM" is quite simple, including an automatic rice dividing system, a camera and a button controlled through an application on the mobile phone. When someone stands in front of the camera and presses the button, the valve automatically opens and a quantity of rice (about 1.5 kg) from the tank flows down the pipeline. Tuan Anh also installs a loudspeaker to guide people how to take rice and a tank to contain rice. Each machine costs over 10 million VND (426 USD).
The advantage of the machine is that it is easy to classify the recipients as the work is controlled by the staff through the mobile application. The device is connected to an application on the phone, the camera identifies the rice recipients, and the on-duty staff can detect those who take the rice many times. If there is any such person, the staff will press the "off" button to prevent the rice from flowing and warn him/her via the loudspeaker. Each day, Tuan Anh assigns three employees working on three shifts.
Using the "rice ATM", the giver and the receiver do not have direct contact with each other, thus preventing the spread of coronavirus. In order to keep order, Tuan Anh installed cameras around the rice distribution area and marked positions for receivers to line up. Hand sanitizer is also available next to the rice container for people to wash their hands before taking rice.
The machine can operate around the clock, avoiding the gathering of many people at a time. The upper rice tank contains 500 kg of rice. When the rice is nearly gone, a signal is sent to the app and the staff will add rice.
Initially, Tuan Anh’s intended to deliver 500 kg of rice a day, but up to one tonne were distributed on the first day. On the second day, many individuals and organizations transported rice to the site to contribute to his meaningful work.
He plans to distribute rice until the end of the pandemic. With personal and company fundings, he wishes to make 100 more automatic rice distributing machines to support the poor.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
