Telangana: Ideas put students on path to entrepreneurship
Hyderabad: Young minds saw some problem in day-to-day life. Instead of leaving them untouched, they decided to tackle them.
Some of them have even won cash awards in the Telangana School Innovation Challenge. In all 5,387 schools from Telangana registered for the challenge and 7000 teachers were trained to guide students on design thinking and innovation. A total of 25,166 students and 11,037 teams have taken part. After multiple evaluations, 20 ideas were shortlisted.
For instance, Shivani and Tamannah, class 9 students from Telangana State Model School at Peddapalli have created an eco-friendly medicine bag. It has four pockets for storing the tablets and medicines. The big pocket in the middle is for keeping medical records or x-rays.
A blue square implies that medicine in it should be taken before breakfast. There are pockets with half sun(after breakfast), full sun (afternoon) and moon and stars (night). Chemists can keep the medicines in the respective pockets. “This comes handy for the elderly or the uneducated,” said Shiva Krishna, the student guide.
Keerthana, L Reethika, students TSMS Mahabubabad, have worked on multipurpose portable room. This can be used as a washroom, changing room or a feeding room. The students came up
with an idea to use an umbrella, which can be modified as a portable room. “A pee-bag, napkin and other essentials can find a place in the kit,” said Nagarjuna, guide for the project.
Administering intravenous fluids during Covid became a stressful activity for nurses. Reason? Blood flows into the tube if the empty bottle is not replaced or the infusion set is not capped. Naman Patnaik, Soham Bilolikar, Debansh Mishra, Gangasani Saanvi Sri from Andhra Mahila Sabha P Obul Reddy (Hyderabad) used an Arduino to devise an alert system.
Arduino is an electronics platform that can read inputs like light on a sensor, a finger on a button and the like. Based on that, it can activate a motor, turn on an LED and so on. The students coded in a way that the LEDs flash when the saline went 60ml. There is also a buzzer, said Sharmila, the science teacher guiding the students.
Budde Vinay Varma, Thumu Abhilash, Myane Laxman, B Abilash from ZPHS Velganoor have created a maize heat device. This comes handy when coal is not available. It uses the principle of converting resistance electrical energy into heat energy said, Venugopal, the guide for this project. “We are seeing if we can use a dynamo for powering it,” he said.
Shiva, Anshul, Likith and Aravind of ZPHS Mulasala-Peddapalli have suggested creating e-tickets for buses and trains using QR codes. “The drivers can keep a track of how many passengers have paid,” said physical science teacher Mamatha.
