OOTY: M. Arun, a class 11 student at the Government Higher Secondary School (GHSS) here has received the honour at the national level science exhibition for school students as his innovative device named, “Solar-powered water bodies solid waste cleaning robot”, got him 4th prize in the national level competition.
Certainly, Arun has proved a point that being born in an economically backward family and studying in government school is not a deterrent to make it big at the national level, as he exhibited sheer will and intent to compete with others across the nation to get due recognition for his device that has proved its worth in cleaning aquatic weeds.
Talking to DC, he said that he won the national level award of the Central department of science and technology (DST) in the ‘Innovation in Science and Pursuit for Inspired Research (Inspire)’.
Explaining his device, he said that he used a polythene pipe on a floating device, a leather roller, a cutter, a collection box and a remote controlled mechanism along with solar panels on the device to control the robot on the water surface to change its direction and to cut the water weeds, collect them and dump it on the collection box.
“From my school days I had been reading about water hyacinth weed in Ooty lake and many an efforts were made to remove it. I wanted to make it simple for the aqua weed management and I thought about fashioning this device. Mr L.Sundaram, a science teacher who is working in a government school in Kattbettu area helped me to fine-tune this device on the advice from Mr Ganesh Moorthy, chief education officer in the Nilgris.
“This device is also helpful to collect and remove other solid wastes floating in the water bodies,” he added . Mr Sundaram, his mentor, said that Arun had organised a couple of demonstration with his robot in Ooty lake a few months ago.
“His device won the district-level and state-level prizes already that helped him compete at the national level, where in Arun’s robot was chosen for the 4th prize at the national level and the first prize in south zone level” he added.
