COVID-19 Community Relief Project: Design and Development of Disinfection Booth with AR/VR Companion App

Abstract

As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has been declared as a global pandemic since March 2020, engineering technology students at Sam Houston State University designed a disinfection booth to minimize the exponentially increasing morbidity rate through contacting with the contaminated surfaces such as individual clothes. The portable disinfecting booth, which is constructed with PVC and attached disinfectant spray tank, can reduce the infectious rate significantly by removing the infectious respiratory droplets lasting on clothes and skin by using disinfectant spray against the SARS-CoV-2. The booth is equipped with a motion detecting sensor that activates the sprinkles when a person is detected in the booth, to provide efficient use of disinfectant. The cost effectiveness and construction simplicity encourage high school and other community relief organizations to produce on their own from the provided tutorials. Additionally, to cope the social distancing as well as the transition to working and studying from home, a Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality simulative application has been developed to assist and teach the public on the booth function and COVID - 19 viruses. The aim of this application is to demonstrate the function of the booth as well as present the information associated with the COVID-19, while users remain social distancing and working from home due to the ongoing pandemic.