Innovators on the Go

No frivolousness here. When this team conceptualised this product, they had an unwavering goal in mind: to bring it to the market, and change the lives of the blind who use Braille. Each braille character or cell comprises six dot positions arranged in a rectangle. A dot is raised at any of the six positions within the rectangle to form a character. Traditionally a pin is used to make indentations in paper, which is then reversed to feel and 8216;read8217; the different combinations of indentations.

8216;8216;This exercise wastes paper, and the turning over of the paper takes time. Moreover the student has to learn what the lateral inversions stand for. We have thus created a device that automatically converts input to output, without the lateral inversions,8217;8217; says team member Anurag Kumar.

The mechanical device has one Braille cell input and multi cell output. The input is connected to a particular cell of output, and the input can be shifted to the next cell. The student can run his fingers over the device to read the output. 8216;8216;This is ideal as a teaching device, and does not waste any time in corresponding output,8217;8217; says the group.

Also: the device can be connected to a PC through electromagnetic actuators- the ones used in dot matrix printers. This means that a PC interface can be created which prints typed documents.

Modifications: The students are working on making the device more light weight to improve portability. The product, they say, can be modified to fit a budget of Rs 500.

Crop Harvester

Jai Jawan, Jai kisan8212;We the Jawans, Working for the Kisans Mayank Jain, Vinayak Garg, Kalpesh Singhal, Abhay Sharma, Devyansh Parmar, Gurjot Singh Dhaliwal

This team believes the country hasn8217;t done enough for technical improvements in agriculture, so they have devised a low cost hand operated crop harvester. The harvester comes with a cone shaped body that gathers the crop that has to be cut. 8216;8216;The cone shape creates a larger cross section area that gathers the harvest on to a side bucket. Also, this shape imitates human gripping action,8217;8217; say the students. The easily manoeuvrable machine hopes to do away with the injuries that using sickles entail. The body has been designed for small farms and farmers cannot afford tractors. It weighs 22 kg, and is 750 mm x 750 mm. A net is placed over the entire device to minimise any scope of injury by the motor blades.

Modifications: the harvester can be fitted with an electric motor. The current cost of production is Rs 2,500, but the team thinks this can be brought down to Rs 1,300.

Switch to appliance identifier

Ankit Lohmore, Rachit Kumar and Arun Garg.

This simple device aims at solving a common problem: trying to figure out which switch is for which light or fan on a crowded switchboard.

The students have made a parallel slider mechanism which is attached to the switchboard. Zero watt bulbs are placed adjacent to the actual lights or bulbs. When the slider which works on circuit mechanism is slid parallel to a particular switch, the indicator bulb lights up. 8216;8216;There are 6 aluminium strips that work as conductors, attached to the switches. This appliance will come in use in large seminar halls. Also, the life of switches, which wear down due to constant 8216;on-off8217; movement, will be longer,8217;8217; say the second year students.

Mechanised Railway Inspection Trolley

Sandeep Garg, Siddhartha Gupta, Kamal Verma, Ajay Bhatia, Navish Wadhwa.

The inspiration for a new improved version of the existing railway trolley: a scene from the movie Rang De Basanti. 8216;8216;We noticed that it took four people to push the heavy trolley, as well as lift it off the track which was exhausting as well as time consming,8217;8217; says the team. Thus the team has created a lightweight trolley that works on cycle mechanism, bringing the weight of the existing trolley down to 78 kg from 135 kg. The group has removed the manual working of the trolley to a pedal mechanism, which requires one person to drive it. For weight reduction, the trolley uses mild steel hollow box sections 1.4 mm thick in place of mild steel. The flooring consists of a wire mesh rather than wooden planks. The wheels have been taken from the Bullet bike for this model, but the students insist that other wheels to fit railway tracks can easily be cast.