Earlier this year, students from a school in Zhejiang Province won many prizes at the 12th BeiDou-Cup China Adolescents Science and Technology Invention Contest (BD-CASTIC “北斗杯”全国青少年科技创新大赛).

BD-CASTIC was started in 2010 by the Chinese government. The competition is held to encourage students to learn more about navigation (导航) technology. Students from Shaoxing No.1 High School took home nine awards, including two first place prizes, four second place prizes and three third place prizes.

One of the first place prizes went to a smart system (系统) for safe driving built by Qian Weicheng and his team. “As more cars run on the road, the number of accidents has increased. Things will be worse if more driverless cars are allowed on the road in the future,” Qian said, “So we wanted to develop a system to lower the risks.” It can check real-time safety distances (距离), watch over the temperature inside the car and look for other problems such as drunk driving.

Zhang Yantao and his team invented a smart robot to help stop the spread of COVID-19. The robot can carry out tasks such as taking people’s temperature and giving out medicine so that doctors and COVID-19 patients can avoid face-to-face communication. The team won the second prize for their invention.

Both of their inventions are based on BeiDou Navigation System (BDS). To complete their inventions, they needed to learn the knowledge of BDS, which they got from their “BeiDou class”. Right now, the class is the only one set up in the middle school around the country to get more talents prepared for the future development of BeiDou science and technology. Over 170 students have joined the program. “We hope the program will develop students’ creative spirit by pointing out and solving problems,” said Zhou Wenlong, the program leader.

Flying Heroes Are Coming!

You are hiking (远足) in a forest, and you are injured. What do you do now? You can use your cellphone to call for help.      ▲      Luckily, in the near future, a real hero will quickly fly in to save you.

Great North Air Ambulance Service is a British charity (慈善机构). It provides helicopter rescues (直升机救援). Recently, the charity has been testing its jet suits (喷气式飞行服) in the Lake District National Park. These suits can help rescuers to find hard-to-reach patients faster.

The jet suit has two mini engines on each arm and a large engine on the pilot’s back. All movements (动作) are controlled by the pilot. The suit can provide 144 kilograms of thrust (推力). This allows the pilot to travel at a speed of more than 50 kilometers per hour. And the person can fly for up to ten minutes.

During one test, it took 25 to 35 minutes for a helicopter to reach a “patient” in the park. A rescuer in the jet suit, however, was able to fly in to help the “patient” in only 90 seconds. While flying, the pilots have to carry heavy medical equipment (设备). The pilots must be trained to find their balance in flight. The team is now busy training and preparing their flying heroes!

Many people are getting the COVID-19 vaccine(疫苗) these days. But some are afraid of needles(针). What if we didn’t use them at all? Scientists around the world are working on new kinds of vaccines. They hope to help people get vaccinated more easily.

Vaccines we can breathe in(吸入)

Chinese scientist Chen Wei and her team have made a new vaccine. You can breathe it in through (a mask or have it sprayed(喷洒) into your mouth. “We do tests since last September and are now applying for(申请) emergency use of the vaccine,” Chen said.

According to Chen, COVID-19 mainly infects us through the nose and throat(喉咙). By breathing in the vaccine, people can get “mucosal immunity(黏膜免疫)”. This can kill the virus in the nose and throat before it goes deeper into the body. It’s also much easier than injecting(注射) a vaccine. This will help more people get vaccinated quickly.

Vaccine patch

Australian scientists at the University of Queensland have made a COVID-19 vaccine patch(贴片). “It’s a very simple one and it’s easy to use. You don’t need medical staff(医务人员),” said researcher David Muller.

You just put the patch on your arm, leave it on for seconds and take it off. Now you are vaccinated. According to the researchers, the patch has 5,000 very tiny needles. They are too small to cause any pain (疼痛). Now researchers are testing the patch on humans. If successful, it could be used within two years.

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