Visualise a setting, a few rural children running to the nearby playground after school and hopping on to the newly installed merry-go-round while their screams of delight fill the air. At the same time, the motion of the merry-go- round is used to rotate the shaft of a generator so that the children can study at night, thus creating a perfect balance.
With this vision in mind, Electrofun was born. Ajay Dinakar, Akshay Mallya, Aseem Chhabra and Rijo John, a group of four engineering students have put their heart and head together on this project as part of their final year curriculum. Students of BMS College of Engineering, they carried out their project under the guidance of Dr G Shashi Kumar, Assistant Professor, Dept of Industrial Engineering and Management.
As Akshay says, “In today’s world, where the need of the hour is green energy sources, we wanted to recognise and utilise a resource that has been invisible to all of us. We wanted to generate energy out of a source that was easy to tap while keeping the cost factor in mind. We looked into many day to day events and happenings around us that could be easily customised for useful and easy energy generation, and then decided on this.”
While Aseem added, “We also looked at the infrastructure in rural schools in the state, and found out that many of them didn’t have playgrounds and the villages didn’t have regular power supply. So this was a win-win situation, providing a solution for two problems at the same time.” They have successfully fabricated the prototype, the cost of which escalated to Rs 32,000 whereas a conventional merry-go- round costs Rs 50,000. Moreover, that produces no electricity while Electrofun generates 300 watts of power, 12 volts DC output. A 7 ampere-hour battery can be fully charged in an hour of play. However, the product is still being tested and they feel that there is still a lot of scope for improving the power output.
Every project has its difficulties and it is the same for them. Ajay, the third group member said, “We had initially planned for another idea to generate electricity, but it wasn’t feasible and had to be rejected. While I feel that cost wasn’t a very big problem, we faced technical issues which took some time to sort out. As our stream is not oriented with electricity issues, we had to consult the lecturers of the concerned departments to get the information we needed.”
On furthering their prototype project, Ajay says “We have tried to contact BBMP officials and are still trying to meet them. Hopefully, something will work out soon.”