CHENNAI: Inspired by PM Narendra Modi’s Swachh Bharat Mission, 40 school students have created a beach cleaning robot. Aptly named the ‘Swachh Bot’ it rakes in garbage to the tune of 20-30 one litre bottles per sweep, but filters out the sand.
Currently being modified in its fourth prototype, the project was taken up by the students of Kidobotikz, a robotics training institute, last year. The idea was sparked when its former pupil, 16-year-old Ashwath Prakash developed a basic robot at home that would help his mother sweep the floor. “Ashwath sent us a video by WhatsApp and we were showing it to the kids in class,” recalls Sneha Priya, one of the founders of the institute. “This led to a brainstorming session of how can we do something bigger with a purpose to clean,” she says.
The students aged 12-17 years were divided into four teams — mechanics, electronics, programming and algorithms to get the project started. Four months later, in June last year, the first model of the Swachh Bot was ready for a trial run. At 1.5 metres tall and packed with industrial grade 5-horse power, 16-year-old Chitresh Tiwari tells us, “It can move at about 4-5 kms an hour.” That’s our average walking speed. At present, the Swachh Bot can sweep garbage, but this has to be manually picked up and dropped into a bin. “That’s what we are fixing in our 2.0 version which should be ready by November,” he explains. Apart from this, work is underway to fit the bot with an automated GPS system that will guide it on a pre-decided route every day, before it returns to its dock for a re-charge.
So are kids going to be sharing their Swachh Bot with the PM any time soon? “Absolutely,” smiles Chitresh. “We just want it to be perfect before we give him a demo”
