Thiruvananthapuram: When the Innovation Hub at the Kerala State Science and Technology Museum setting no age limit for innovators, who would have thought that two school students will be among the first to register.
Akhil A.B. and Gokul H, in Plus two and Class IX respectively, are now working with robots and might just take part in World Robot Olympiad.
Akhil, the older one, had walked in last month with an ambitious idea — to make a wireless charger. To help us understand how difficult it is going to be, the hub’s Scientific Officer Anoop K.K., says, “There are electromagnetic induction wireless chargers, but these require the charger to be in contact with a surface. Can the phone be charged from the mobile tower itself?”
An Electronics Service Technology student at Technical Higher Secondary School, Muttada, he was acquainted with basic electronic components like capacitors and resistors, nothing more. Now he and Gokul are tinkering with a line follower robot, which they made using an open source hardware.
Gokul says, “I would never have been able to work with robots, had I not come here.” They just had to pay an annual fee of Rs 1,000 to be part of the innovators’ club. An assignment they will be working on is a robot assistant, which will take files from one place to another.
The equipments here are not as state-of-the-art as a Fablab, but these are not limited to engineering sector, according to Cyril K. Babu, Scientific Officer. “Those labs are meant for someone with clear design concepts. Normally students, with no background in design, have a lot of brilliant ideas. We can help shape those innovations, and even improve it. Moreover, we can take the help of experts where needed,” he says.
The hub has kits of customisable, programmable robots. Akhila R. Gomez, the Graduate Engineering Trainee who helps them, says, “These are gifted to seven-year-olds in the US, as it is so easy. But to improve the existing code is not easy. One needs to know both programming and hardware, to do that.”
