G. Mounika and K.L.S.P. Varshini of the A.P. Social Welfare Residential School (APSWR) Centre of Excellence (COE) in Kommadi have done their school proud with their ‘Kisan Bandhu Bhagya’, a multi-purpose agricultural robot, which was one of the five projects from Andhra Pradesh to be chosen in the second round of the Atal Innovation Marathon.
“I used to go to the field to meet my grandfather. He used to tell me about the difficulties in farming due to lack of equipment for agricultural operations, the problems with money lenders and farmer suicides,” says Mounika, who hails from a farmer’s family at Anandapuram, on the outskirts of the city.
“I thought of putting technology to use in making agricultural operations easy and affordable. I discussed my idea with my friend Varshini, my project partner, and we took the assistance of our teachers and mentor to make the agricultural robot. The wheeled robot has solar panels to tap the sun’s energy and DPDT switches to control the operations,” she says. The functional robot has been fitted with simple implements to enable ploughing, sowing of seeds, fertilizers and transplantation. “Our idea is to get higher yield in less time and at lower cost,” they say.
Other ideas
Swaroopa has developed a ‘smart dustbin’ to prevent overflowing of garbage. She used a battery, relay and sensors to send an alert to the municipal office when the bin is half-empty and a second alert when it is 70% full so that concerned staff could clear the garbage on time to prevent overflowing.
Funds come in
Gummadi Srikanya developed an application to show vacant seats in train coaches and indicate when the coach was full. She used ultrasonic sensors and an LCD TV, mounted outside the coach, to display the vacancy positions.
“Our school has been sanctioned ₹12 lakh for Atal Tinkering Lab. We have received ₹6 lakh worth equipment. The rest would be spent on innovation camps and lab equipment,” says Principal S. Rupavathi.
“Students have been bagging awards for the last five years and one student G. Srikanya was one of the seven selected to represent our school at the World Maker Faire held in New York in September 2018,” says ATL in charge T. Rambabu.
