Young innovators

At a national-level community problem solving competition organised in Madurai earlier this month, six students from SR Engineering College in Warangal emerged winners competing with 29 other colleges. Their innovative and cost-effective solution to help idol makers in a nearby village increase their productivity while saving time, impressed the judges. 

“When we were taken to the village, we looked around to see what solutions we could give to make life easier for its residents. We noticed that a majority of them made a living out of making clay idols and we decided it would be great if we could come up with something to make the production easier,” shares Paul Vineeth Reddy.

With contestants coming from states like Punjab, Maharash-tra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Gujarat amongst other places, it sure was a boost to win the competition. Recalling how the whole event unfolded, Vineeth, a 4th year student, also the senior-most in the team where the rest are in 3rd year, says, “It was a three-day workshop with one day spent in a village. Through our conversations with the locals, we understood that they mostly worked manually, with each unit producing around 10 idols a day.”

Their solution will be economical and affordable for the villagers, he asserts. “Our design is custom-made for their requirements. They export their idols to places like Japan where there’s a huge demand for such work and now with our design, they’ll be able to make more profits in lesser time,” he says, as he goes on to explain how their product will stand out. “Firstly, the machine will be made with material recycled from plastic. The mixing of the contents and cutting work have so far been hand processed. We have now designed a machine which will reduce manual work,” elaborates Vineeth, who adds that this process will increase employment because of the increase in production.

The team aims to come up with their first batch of machines in the next six months and duties have already been divided amongst the team. Vineeth and Md Imran Ahmad are in charge of model prototyping and design, K. Enosh will check on the metallurgical details while S. Sirihasa and K. Sricharan will handle the documentation and sketching. Meanwhile, Vineeth is also co-ordinating with D. Vinay on the financial feasibility and viability of the product.

Interestingly, the second and third prize winners at the competition organised by the Indo Universal Collaboration for Engineering Education IUCEE-Student Consortium for Advancement and Learning in Engineering Education at the Tyagaraja College of Engineering, were also colleges from Telangana — BVRIET and CVSR from Hyderabad.