Borewell accidents are all too common these days. The deaths of a five-year-old girl in Haryana on Monday and a two-year-old boy in Thiruchirapalli last month were the latest in the series.
Two students of the Government Higher Secondary School, Vazhakulam, have woken up to the perils posed by carelessly abandoned defunct borewells. Surya Jose and Sivadev Manu have come up with a model of a ‘borewell rescue robot’ in the working model category at the State School Science Festival. For their invention, the students won the first prize in the high school category.
“Rescue operation is rendered more difficult by the narrow width of the borewell. Time is a crucial factor here. By the time a parallel pit is dug, the child would have died. This prompted us to develop a robot to guide the rescue mission,” the students said.
The robot is remote-controlled. It has a camera, oxygen cylinder, hands to hold the child, and mike and speaker to give instructions to the child.
The movement of the robot can be monitored from above. The hands of the robot can be rotated 360 degrees.
“We have tried to minimise the expense, collecting many parts from second-hand shops. We spent ₹5,000 and one month to make the robot.”
A huge crowd had assembled to watch the robot’s functioning at the mela. Sivadev and Surya are planning to apply for patent for their invention. They have sent a mail to the Chief Minister explaining their invention.
