The COVID-19 pandemic has made people all over the world thinking including various organisations. Educational Institutions and various research centers are doing everything in their power to proffer solution and various strategies to curtail the spread of the COVID-19 so as to contain it. Kumasi Technical University (KsTU) on its part has been making frantic efforts in its quest to help deal with the situation. The latest invention of the University to help deal with COVID-19 is the development of a Foot-Operated Hand Washing Machine (FOHWAM).
This is a kind of equipment that makes it possible for the user to step on two different paddles to access liquid soap and water discharged from two different points without necessarily using one’s hand. The essence is to avoid the usual using of hand to touch a common point such as a tab to access water and a cork to access the liquid soap during hand washing. The user finally accesses a tissue from the equipment and steps on another paddle of an affixed dustbin to dispose of the used tissue.
It is the determination of KsTU to produce an initial number of ten (10) of the equipment to be distributed to some selected organisations, educational institutions as well as other public places for use. As an educational institution, KsTU will continue to conduct research towards dealing with the pandemic and other societal challenges through its various faculties such as Pharmaceutical Sciences, Engineering and Technology, Creative Arts and Technology among others. The latest invention was produced by a team of researchers from the Mechanical Engineering Department with an excellent support from the Faculty of Engineering and Technology under the deanship of Ing. Dr. Abena Obiri-Yeboah. A team of eight (8) members comprising designers and fabricators produced the equipment. The designers were Ing. Dr. Joseph F. X. Ribeiro (team leader), Mr. Fred Adzabe, Ing. Joseph Lewballah and Ing. Timothy Alhassan as lead experts. The fabricators were Messrs S. F. K Ghansah, Benjamin Ghansah, Edana Anafo, Joseph Atambilla and Francis Mensah.
The Head of Mechanical Engineering Department Dr. Prince Owusu-Ansah who coordinated the entire project was full of praise for the team and gave assurance that much of such inventions and innovations were on the way. Speaking to the media, the Vice-Chancellor of KsTU Ing. Prof Osei-Wusu Achaw stated that as a technical university, the Institution’s main focus is on teaching and research. Therefore, commercialisation of the product was not the Institution’s objective. The objective was to create something that could produce in commercial quantities by industry. He therefore, appealed to industry players to come on board to mass produce the product.
