The Andhra Pradesh Social Welfare Residential Education Institutions Society (APWREIS) was founded on the 2nd January, 1987, with the prime responsibility of establishing residential schools and colleges for Scheduled Caste students, under the scheme of Social Welfare Department.

After 30 years, the Atal Innovation Mission at NITI Aayog, provided an opportunity to the schools of the country to create innovative labs within their school premises. APSWREIS leveraged this opportunity to provide Atal Tinkering Labs. (ATL) to more than 100 schools, under their support. This resulted in the ATL infrastructure being available to more than 3000 girls in these schools, across the most inaccessible places of Andhra Pradesh, India.

These young students from the rural areas of Andhra Pradesh seldom got an opportunity to even use a computer. Most of their earlier generations did not even leave their villages for their entire lifetime. Education was just a means to learn basic reading and writing, and later get married within their faith and communities. That was the expected life of a rural girl.

But fate had something else for the students of APSWREIS schools. The establishment of ATL in the school became a means to open their wings and share their ideas. The students soon started addressing their issues and tried to solve problems with the resources in the ATL, with the support of their mentors.

Recently, some students from class 9th and 10th - R. Meghana, Sai Ganesh, P. Swathi, A. Ankitha, Kumar Ramji, B. Akhil, G. Ramya, and Srikanya from various schools across the state, showcased their innovation at the Maker Faire Amravati, which was organised by the Andhra Pradesh Innovation Society. The Maker Faire national jury was so impressed that the students were invited to the World Maker Faire, 2018 at the Bay Area, California, USA – The ‘Mecca’ of a Maker.

The Two projects showcased are described as follows :

1. Entertainment Robot for Poultry Farms for Increasing Growth of Chicks

Students designed a robot which can be used in poultry farms to entertain chicks and mobilize them around the farm, which can increase the growth of chicks and at the same time, improve their health. This is one of the community problems we identified in our region. The robot is fully autonomous attached/equipped with an ultrasonic sensor which can sense the presence of any object (in our case chick, walls of farm etc). The information from ultrasonic sensor can be used in helping navigate around the environment without hurting chicks and damaging the other things in farm. The autonomous behaviour of robot will entertain chicks and at the same time, helps increase the growth of chicks in poultry farms.

2. Autonomous Robot to Carry Bricks from One Place to Another Place

The students designed an autonomous robot which can carry bricks from one place to another with manual loading and unloading. The robot will automatically detect the completion of loading and unloading of bricks using ultrasonic sensors. Once we are done with loading of bricks, it automatically goes from one place to another place using line following mechanism. Any person(educated or uneducated), just needs to draw a line from source to destination and the robot will follow automatically that line using line following mechanism. Worker can load and unload the bricks at source and destination and assistive indication for loading/unloading the bricks.

The ATL initiative is proven to initiate a mindset change in the state of Andhra Pradesh and across India. The 7 gems of the villages of Andhra Pradesh, who had never thought of visiting another country, representing India at an International conclave where creators from across the world celebrate the spirit of tinkering and making. A journey will inspire countless dreamers of the world.

 

Names of students: R. Meghana, Sai Ganesh, P. Swathi, A. Ankitha, Kumar Ramji, B. Akhil, G. Ramya, and Srikanya

Mentor: U. Vinay Kumar Ulli