Page 31 - EW May 2020 for Flipbuilder

Young Achievers

Raj Gupta, Dr. Rajesh Suresh Chandra Kalal and govern-
Singh and Dr. Anita ment school teacher Susheela,
Gehlot,” he adds in a Nidhi became interested in waste
tribute to LPU faculty. recycling when she was a class III
Currently, an LPU student eight years ago. “Observ-
task force is looking ing road construction activity near
for corporate partners the school when I was in class III, I
to mass produce the conceived the idea of building roads
prototype, with Ally with underlying layers of abundant
expected to become 25 plastic waste, when my class teacher
percent cheaper after raised the subject of plastic pollution
commercialisation. worldwide,” she recalls.
The final product is At a later stage Nidhi’s atten-
expected to be ready tion was drawn to the ‘white hills’
L-R: Vaishnavi, Prabin & Vinay for deployment within surrounding Udaipur, which she
two months of factory discovered was a white film of
ALLY INVENTORS production. non-biodegradable marble slurry
“Ally’s task of collecting waste in
waste — 5-6 million tonnes of which
quarantined areas without human are generated annually from 4,000
hallenging the coronavirus contact can save lives of thousands marble mines statewide — and the
outbreak which has taken of frontline workers battling the Co- idea of using waste materials in road
Cover 210,000 lives worldwide, vid-19 pandemic. Safety and cleanli- building projects took shape. “I owe
a team of engineering undergrad ness was always Ally’s core purpose. immense gratitude to our princi-
students — Prabin Kumar Das, We are hopeful it will be commer- pal Tulsi Bhatia and my father for
Vaishnavi Gupta and Vinay Kumar cialised soon and save millions of funding my trial project which cost
of the Jalandhar-based Lovely lives of medical personnel,” says Rs.17,000,” acknowledges Nidhi.
Professional University (LPU, Pranav, a sentiment echoed by team Set on a career in the IAS, Nidhi
estb.2005) — has developed a smart members Vaishnavi and Vinay. is currently in her native Dungarpur
dustbin christened Ally, for use in Wind in your sails! village after completing her class XII
hospitals and medical centres. Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore) CBSE exams, and is waiting for the
Conceptualised and developed nationwide Covid-19 lockdown to
under the aegis of LPU’s special en- end. “Although I am among the lucky
dowment fund of $1 million (Rs.7.5 ones to finish board exams, it’s dif-
crore) to fight Covid-19, Ally moves NIDHI KALAL ficult to tell when education institu-
along predetermined paths in a tions will reopen in these uncertain
controlled environment. The smart times. Meanwhile, I am in the pro-
dustbin makes contact-less collec- daipur-based recycled waste cess of filing a patent for my low-cost
tions by opening its lid/flap on voice proponent Nidhi Kalal (17) process invention which will help
command. Moreover, its sensors Ucould well revolutionise road clear our dumping yards and keep
gauge its brim level and dispose construction countrywide with her the environment clean. Next on my
waste automatically, readying it for innovative solution. Nidhi is a class agenda is a river-cleaning project,”
reuse. XII student of Udaipur’s CBSE and enthuses Nidhi.
“We developed a ready-to-go Cambridge International (UK)-af- Way to go, Sis!
prototype of Ally and successfully filiated Heritage Girls School (HGS) Akhila Damodaran (Bangalore)
conducted trials in the university’s — ranked among the country’s Top
innovation lab after a full month of 10 girls boarding schools in
continuous refinement and im- the latest EW India School
provements. The prototype, which Rankings 2019-20.
costs Rs.20,000, is 3 ft. tall, 1.5 Last October (2019) Ni-
ft. wide and weighs almost 5 kg. dhi supervised the building
We used sun boards as the basic of a 1-metre stretch of road
material to build the outer struc- within the HGS campus us-
ture and engaged Python, openCV, ing a layer of marble slurry,
Embedded C software to improve plastic and fly ash among
Ally’s performance. For move- other waste material, found
ment, we installed a motor and two in abundance in Rajasthan.
front wheels that move in all four Recently the Union minis-
directions and an Omni wheel for try of road transport and
rotation,” explains Prabin, spokes- highways acknowledged her
person of the team. solution as valuable and is
“During all phases of product investigating further.
development, we were closely moni- The elder of two chil-
tored and mentored by Dr. Lovi dren of businessman

MAY 2020 EDUCATIONWORLD 31