KOCHI: Innovation is alive and kicking! The ideas executed at Sasthrolsavam 2019-20 by students from 14 sub-districts in Ernakulam revenue district reveal the treasure trove of talents hidden in government and aided schools. From electric bikes and bicycles, wireless transmission to environment-friendly guns that can scare away wild animals in areas where man-animal conflict is at its worst, the science fair demonstrated improvisation.
Sasthrolsavam saw the participation of more than 8,000 students from the 14 sub-districts in the four education districts. “The fair was held in six venues in Ernakulam. Each venue catered to one particular subject. The venues were Govt Girls’ Higher Secondary School (Maths fair), SRV Boys’ Higher Secondary School (IT fair), St Antony’s Girls’ Higher Secondary School (Science fair), St Albert’s Higher Secondary School (Work experience fair), St Mary’s Higher Secondary School (Social Studies fair) and Dar-ul Uloom Vocational Higher Secondary School (Vocational Expo),” Joseph Varghese, publicity convenor, Ernakulam Revenue District Sasthrolsavam 2019, told TNIE.
“The one thing that makes the fair special is the on-the spot-competition. Students have to give life to their ideas, right at the venue. The students will have to depend on their wits and hone their trouble-shooting abilities in order to get their inventions to work successfully,” said Joseph. The competitions are transparent since no others are allowed into the areas allotted for each student.
While subjects are given for certain competitions, in the case of improvisation section, the students have to bring to fruition the facts and concepts they have learnt in their classrooms.
“The projects can be anything. But presenting something that can be applied in real-time takes the prize,” said a teacher. While the Maths, Science, Work Experience, Social Studies and Vocational fairs saw students preparing charts, models, working models, coming up with new technologies, the competitors at the IT fair used their coding abilities to trounce rivals.
“Fourteen competitions were held in the IT fair. Some of them are animation, digital painting, scratch programming, web designing, presentation and DTP,” said Sajimon, district coordinator, Kite. “The students are good coders. We gave them a topic and an hour to come up with an animation that tells a story based on the theme. No internet usage is allowed and the pictures needed for the animations are provided by us,” he said.
The students who get selected in the revenue district competition get to match their innovation capabilities with others during the state-level Sasthrolsavam.
E-bike and bicycle steal the show
Two friends and two innovations. When Basil George and Karthik Suresh designed an e-bike for the science fair, they never thought it would attract attention and that too on such a big scale! “We had presented an e-bicycle in last year’s science fair. It powered us to the top spot,” said Karthik Suresh, who is a Plus-Two student of MKMHSS, Piravom.
The students who love tinkering decided to design a battery-run motorcycle for the science fair this time.
“Just like we developed an e-bicycle from an old and discarded cycle, we converted this old bike into one running on battery power,” said Basil, who is also a Plus-Two student of the same school. According to them, the project cost them a pretty penny in terms of investment.
“We had to cough up `40,000 to get the components and the battery to convert the bike. Of the `40,000, our school provided us with `10,000. The rest was funded by our families,” said Basil. For the bicycle, the duo invested `14,000. The bike has all the features found in a commercially manufactured one.
“We do have to do a bit of upgrading like installing a cut-off attached to the braking system,” said Karthik. But that will be in the future, he added.
“For the present, we will be concentrating on our studies. As for future plans, we will arrive at it once we are doing our engineering courses,” said Karthik and Basil.