Students of Sri Ramakrishna Mission Higher Secondary School — South, T. Nagar, developed an alarm that would warn pedestrians and motorists of any live electric cable lying on the road. This model won the title at an inter-school competition based on the theme “Need for Safe Streets”.
The competition was part of the sixth edition of Dream Madras 2017, a flagship event of United Way Chennai conducted in commemoration of Madras Day.
The contest was held last week at Anna University in Guindy where children made various presentations on how to make city roads safer.
Among the 120 schools that took part in the event, 15 were government and government-aided schools and schools run by the Greater Chennai Corporation.
According to a spokesperson of United Way Chennai, “In the previous years, our themes were based on Smart Cities Mission and Swachh Bharath Mission. This year, we came up with the theme of road safety because Tamil Nadu has the highest accident rate, across India. So, we felt it necessary that children are introduced to the issue.” The second place was secured by The Schram Academy, which is located at Maduravoyal. Its students had worked on “energy-smart” escalators for busy thoroughfares. They had worked on creating escalators that would be powered by solar energy during the day, and batteries at night.
Smt. Narbada Devi J. Agarwal Vivekananda Vidyalaya Junior College at Vysarpadi and The PSBB Millennium School at Thazhambur shared the third place.
A method to check drunk driving and a QR code for monitoring the speed of each vehicle on the roads were their concepts respectively.
As most of the arterial roads in the city are congested with traffic, movement of ambulances is often hindered. The team from L. M. Dadha Senior Secondary School in Choolaimedu made an attempt to address this challenge by devising a robot that could fly over the stranded traffic and provide the golden-hour care to the injured.
Their model fetched them the “Young Technopreneurs” title.
St. Mary’s Matriculation Girls Higher Secondary School at Madurai Sami Madam Street in Perambur came first in the category of “Outstanding Innovators”.
The students had developed a model aimed at making the roads in a school zone safe for people, especially students, to cross.
They also demonstrated another model which incorporated indicators based on signs so that motorists need not honk while driving through a hospital zone.
Nathella Vidhyodaya from Ambattur won the title in “Best Team Effort” category. The team had developed a prototype of a “smart helmet”.
As the helmet is all the time exposed to the sun, students made an attempt to harness solar energy and use it for charging the batteries of cellphones.
If the helmet is not buckled, it will be indicated to a motorist through an alarm. Another interesting component of the helmet was that it had been installed with an “alcohol-sensor”.
If a motorist has consumed alcohol, the sensor will signal it through a red bulb to the traffic police and the other motorists can also be made aware of this.
Two workshops
Two workshops were conducted for children at the day-long event.
ALERT (Amenity Lifeline Emergency Response Team) conducted a session on the first-aid that needs to be administered to an accident victim. It included hands-on training on how to check the pulse, the right kind of postures while handling an injured person, administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation, methods of arresting bleeding and understanding the vitals of the human body.
RAAIF (Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Foundation) conducted another workshop and this dealt with optimal use of artificial intelligence to make our roads safer.
Cultural contests such as singing, dance, storytelling and stand-up comedy were conducted.
Under the solo category, P. S. Senior Secondary School from Mylapore, N.S.N. Matriculation Higher Secondary School from Chromepet and SBOA School and Junior College from Anna Nagar won.
Government Girls Higher Secondary School from Ekanampet, Chennai Boys Higher Secondary School from Saidapet and Perum Thalaivar Kamrajar Government Girls Higher Secondary School from Ambattur won in the team category.
United Way Chennai is the Chennai chapter of United Way Worldwide, a community welfare organisation, which has a presence in over 40 countries.
The Chennai chapter, founded in 2010, has taken up welfare projects in the field of education and sanitation.
United Way Chennai’s office is located at Gopathi Narayanaswami Chetty Road, Parthasarathi Puram, T Nagar.
For further details, call 044 – 4558 9062.
