RAJANNA-SIRCILLA: While it is said that ‘need is the mother of invention’, it was seeing his mother toil for hours that propelled a Class 10 student from Sircilla to make a prototype of a powerloom cloth-folding machine.
A student at the Kusumaramaiah Zilla Parishad High School for Boys, Jakkani Hemanth hails from the weaver community. He would often see his mother folding cloths produced on the power loom. After the death of his father during the Covid-19 pandemic, his mother became the sole breadwinner in the family with three children.
Speaking to TNIE, Hemanth says he embarked on a mission to find a solution to ease his mother’s burden and optimise efficiency. After conceptualising the machine, Hemanth sought guidance from his teachers at school. With perseverance and ingenuity, Hemanth, along with the assistance of physics guide Pakala Shankar Goud, spent nearly two months crafting the machine using recycled materials such as wheels, chains, motors and sensors from power loom waste.
They built a prototype that drastically reduces the time and manpower required for cloth folding, adds Hemanth Where hours were once spent folding cloths, the machine can do the same task in a mere 10 minutes, Shankar shares.
Recently, Hemanth showcased the machine’s operation to district collector Anuraag Jayanti and additional collector P Gouthami. Impressed by his ingenuity, the collector pledged to support Hemanth in securing patent rights for his creation and arranged for the machine to be sent to T-Works in Hyderabad.
Moved by her son’s initiative and driven by the family’s circumstances, Hemanth’s mother, Rupa, appeals to the government for assistance to support her family and further her son’s endeavours.
In a matter of minutes
Hemanth and his guide built a prototype that reduces the time and manpower required for cloth folding. Instead of hours, the machine can do it in a mere 10 minutes