Kids talk of smart spoons, ‘Alpha armour’ suits

BENGALURU: With many an out-of-the-box concepts like extraction of fuel from plastic, solar-powered e-bicycles for farmers, ‘smart spoons’ for people suffering from Parkinson’s disease, or ‘Alpha armour’ suits for the armed forces and cultivation of one variety of mushroom to replace animal leather; school children from across the country, took the limelight on the second day of the 107th edition of Indian Science Congress in this tech hub on Saturday.

Papers presented by them at Children Science Congress, held as part of the Indian Science Congress, mirrored innovative methods to tackle a myriad of problems — from management of household waste to tips on conservation of water, use of khadi agrobags instead of plastic, to use of mobile apps for irrigation of crop fields and briquettes as alternative source of energy.

Divesh Deepak and Akhilesh Thakur of Trinity Public School, Banjar, Himachal Pradesh, addressed the burgeoning problem of disposal of plastic and how conversion of plastic into an alternative energy source could address two problems—management of plastic waste and an alternative fuel for local use.
 
“Pyrolysis is a process which involves thermo chemical decomposition of organic matter at a high temperature (above 370 degrees centigrade) in the absence of oxygen gas. This project study ensures the most efficient and widely used method of converting plastic to fuel,” they reported in their paper presented at the event.

Another duo, Om Prakash Pani and Sujal Lenka, spoke about their ‘Alpha armour suit’ for the armed forces, complete with an exoskeleton fitted with springs to boost calf muscles and thus increase speed and agility, and shoes fitted with piezoelectric cells to help charge all components of the suit and helmet fitted with night vision thermal sensors and infrared sensors.

“The suit will be bullet proof for now and with further advancements, the suit has the potential to become blast proof and would have rocket boosters to let the soldier fly short distances or to take super leaps,” states their paper.

While a variety of new technologies were proposed for the health sector, ‘smart spoon’, a reliable and affordable device for those suffering from tremors, in particular Parkinson’s disease, seemed extraordinary.

Nishita Aggarwal and Sanya Sagar of Chandigarh, explained, “The smart spoon works on the principle of ‘active cancellation’, in which an embedded computer captures motion signals detected by sensors, identifies the user’s tremor and then moves the spoon in the opposite direction of that tremor.”

Nobel laureate Dr Ada Yonath (Israel) and Bharat Ratna Prof C.N.R Rao were present at the event. While Dr Ada Yonath said she started working on Science at the age of five, Prof. Rao listed examples of a number of renowned scientists, including Sir C.V. Raman  to influence the children.