Child innovators impress one and all
PHAGWARA: The innovative projects put on display by the participants of Children Science Congress (CSC) at Lovely Professional University (LPU) here underlines that there is no dearth of talent in India. The CSC was inaugurated by Nobel laureates Avram Hershko from Israel and F Duncan M Haldane from the US on Friday.
CSC is part of the ongoing 106th Indian Science Congress. The shortlisted students from across the country are given an opportunity to interact with scientists and showcase their creativity and innovations. As many as 150 students have exhibited their projects finalised by the department of science and technology.
Duncan, while addressing the students, said science is cool and teachers have a role to play in making it more interesting. “Technology makes things happen but science is finding out how things work,” he said.
EYE-OPERATED WHEELCHAIR
Dhanraj, 19, a Class 12 government school student from Bhojwas village in Mahendergarh district of Haryana, has developed a smart wheelchair that can be operated through the movement of eyeball. Dhanraj’s innovation has already bagged the national award at Jawaharlal Nehru National Science, Mathematics and Environment Exhibition for Children.
Dhanraj said a person has to wear special glasses equipped with infrared and the signal comes from the movement of the eyeball. “The chair goes to right or left as per the movement of the eyeball. To stop the wheelchair, one has to close his/her eyes. However, it doesn’t move reverse in any way,” he said.
In the prototype on display, the user has to blacken his/her eyelid to make the wheelchair stop. Dhanraj said he is working on how to stop the wheelchair without blackening the eyelid and function to reverse the chair via eye movement only. On his long term plans, Dhanraj said his aim is to develop a wheelchair that can be controlled by mind. The cost Dhanraj ₹15,000 only, while the joystick-operated wheelchairs in the market cost ₹60,000.
GIRL VOUCHES FOR ALKALINE WATER
Rejecting the myth that people are drinking safe and healthy water from reverse osmosis (RO) system, 14-year-old girl Disha, a Class 9 class student from Sadvidya High School, Mysuru in Karnataka, claims that the water should be alkaline in nature.
Disha says the RO system removes even the essential minerals from the water and she has come up with a way to make the water alkaline at minimum cost. She said to restore the water minerals in water purified by RO, it should be kept in a jar having magnesium oxide stones for about eight to 10 hours.
AGRI TOOLS
To help his agriculturist father, government school student Lovejeet Singh, 18, from Sheikhupura village in Gurdaspur has developed a garden digger, a sapling transplanter and a cycle spray pump. Lovejeet said his father used to complain about his backpain, after which he thought of designing an equipment so that his father didn’t need to bend while working in fields. And he came out with the machines with the help of his teacher Madan Lal.
‘JUGAAD’ FOR PRESERVING MILK
Two students — Jagjot Singh and Irshad Ali from Punjab’s Muktsar Sahib — have come up with a “jugaad” to preserve milk for about a week.
Jagjot said a thin copper pipe is woven around a heater rod that heats up the milk up to 70 degrees Celsius before it goes to the chilling container, which destroys the bacteria. The milk can be preserved for a week thereafter.
BASCULE BRIDGE
Not satisfied with the London bridge which has to be lifted manually to give way to ships, Vikas Kumar (18) from Dehradun has come up with an automatic bascule bridge technology. He said the prototype uses ‘laser to light dependent resistance technology’ in which a ship has to pass three signals before passing the bridge. “When ship will pass from the first signal it will give a beep that it is about to arrive while the second signal will close the level crossing and then the bridge will lift up to give way to the ship.”