October the 23rd, 2024 – Croatian innovation was spotlighted at the recently held INOVA exhibition of innovation, prototypes and and business plans at Zagreb Fair (Velesajam).
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Domagoj Puljizovic writes, sustainable reusable TexWrap made from waste t-shirts and used jeans material as a replacement for plastic film used in warehouses, S-WARM system for extinguishing forest fires composed of a swarm of drones, automatic municipal waste sorter (ARKO), underground traffic lights that would reduce traffic accidents on busy streets… We could go on. Croatian innovation is firmly on display and the aforementioned are just some of the 511 exhibits that visitors to the Zagreb Fair could view as part of the 48th INOVA, the international exhibition of innovations, prototypes and business plans.
croatian innovation impresses – yet again
“With the help of a large number of drones stationed in the plane every 100 kilometres, that is, up to 1000 of them, each of which would carry ten litres of water, S-WARM could be used effectively in extinguishing fires. The advantage of drones is that they can directly surround the trees and extinguish the fire at the source, while a canadair has to hit it from a height and take into account the evaporation of the dropped water.
Additionally, they can be filled back up at a spring, lake, in the sea or in a river. They can be automated or remote-controlled, and more,” explained exhibitor Robert Petrušić when describing one of his three reported innovations.
The attention of many visitors was also attracted by the one and only DOK-ING’s educational container for earthquake simulation – PEK-001. This piece of Croatian innovation was created in cooperation with the Ministry of the Interior (MUP). With it, visitors could feel what it’s like to experience an earthquake up to the ninth degree of the Mercalli scale on the 20th floor of a building, Neven Marković from the Association of Innovators of Zagreb told Croatian Radio and Television (HRT).
young croatian minds
under the mentorship of Goran Ecimović from the First Tesla Technical School, talented young Croatian innovators Saša Šivak, Maks Blažek and Andrija Radas, designed an acoustic scale, which they believe can easily find an industrial function.
“The idea is for our scale to help people who can’t see or hear. It works by printing digital numbers with the help of the display and stating the weight of the object that is placed on the scale through the speaker. For people with impaired vision and hearing, we installed a display that prints the Braille alphabet. The idea is that the display works on rows of relays that will eject thin rods and thus create braille. Given that these relays heat up, we installed fans to cool them down, and those who don’t need Braille can simply turn that function off.”
This interesting solution was developed throughout last year. In addition to home use, acoustic scales can be installed in facilities such as hospitals or in associations that provide assistance to people with physical disabilities.
“The acoustic scale could find use in industry as well. People who are visually impaired can see the objects they need to weigh and measure, but they can’t see the printed numbers, so the scale can help them with the weight,” revealed Šivak.
