HYDERABAD: In an effort to conserve Hyderabad’s fast-disappearing lakes, a team of students from a city college has made a solar pool skimmer that can clean debris while skimming water along the surface of the pool.
A group of students from Hyderabad Institute of Technology and Management (HITAM) — Alankar Achadian, Anjali Verma, Rahil Hussain and Karthik Katta — developed this skimmer under the guidance of faculty members from their college outreach centre. When they found that a lake in Pochampally was dying due to algal and microbial growth, these students decided to build something that would help save the lake.
The motor of the skimmer, which runs on solar power, has been made from scrap material. Santosh Naik, one of the project guides, says: "This triangle-shaped pool cleaner, which is around two feet in length and half feet in breadth, has a floatable chamber attached to its bottom that can collect the trash. It’s fitted with a camera and can be controlled via Bluetooth. We can see the trash being collected from a remote location. At one go, it can collect 10 kg of trash."
This project, which won the Intinta Innovator award from the Telangana government, was created as part of the college’s outreach programme.
The product will be ready for sale by March this year and it was developed under the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan. Each unit of this skimmer, which costs around Rs 15,000, can give a fresh lease of life to lakes choking under algal bloom and other debris.
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