Indian Origin Teens Builds Auto Watering Device for Plants

Auto Watering Device for Plants 

INTRODUCTION:

Two Indian Teens namely Pratyush Bansal and Aekas Singh Gulati, who are students of class 8 in Global Indian International School (GIIS) in Singapore.

They went to their hometown for vacations with their parents to live with their grandparents in India. But, When they came back they saw something which made them felt sad.

The Plants in their garden which they loved so much died due to lack of water as no one was home to give them water.

After this had happened a few more time, they decided to design an automatic watering system for plants.

It happens to lots of other people who went to travel in some place and when they came back they see died plants

While talking to the Popular Blog The Better India Pratysuh said, “Our innovation is designed for garden plants for now, especially for families who travel overseas and are worried that their garden plants for now, especially for families who travel overseas and are worried that their garden plants would die in their absence. It works on a pumping technique using a motor. Almost 80% of the device is made from reusable and recyclable materials while the other 20% involves hardware like a motor and a circuit board.”

Aekes and Pratyush may have different dreams but their love for coding and software development made them learn to complicate coding language to the design the programme of the self-watering system innovation.

CONSTRUCTION:

The system requires a hygrometer, an instrument to measure humidity in the air, a circuit board, a motor, and other hardware.

 HOW does IT work?

The hygrometer which is connected to the circuit board is placed inside the soil, and once it detects dryness, it sends a signal to the circuit board. The board is connected to a motor placed inside a water tank. Following detection, the circuit board runs the motor, which pumps the water from the water tank into the dry soil through a pipe.

Once the soil is sufficiently moist, another signal goes to the circuit board, which then stops the motor and in turn the pumping.

Whenever hygrometer detects less than required moisture in the soil it sends a signal to the motor.

RECOGNITIONS:

Paratyush and Aekes were invited to showcase the model at the Young Innovators Programme at IIT Kharagpur.

While talking with The Asian Age Aekas said, “We are now trying to add a Wi-Fi enabled circuit to it with GSM module which will automatically link our mobile phones to the device, and we can monitor the watering of our plants using an app.”

Their success in this tender age is clearly an indication of what they are capable in the future.

Tags: IIT Kharagpur, GSM module, Pratyush bansal, Aekas Singh Gulati, Global Indian International School, Gardening Innovations

TOILET BED FOR SICK WIFE

Introduction:

Common men who live in Tamil Nadu, a welder by profession made something for her sick wife which won the national Prize for innovation.

Read the journey from Labour to National Prize winner.

The Beginning:

In 2014 Saravanamuthu’s wife Krishnammal was confined to bed for three months after surgery due to which she became dependent on her family.

Even the smallest task like using washroom could not be possible for her without anyone help. Being independent women she never wanted to be dependent on anyone for such small tasks.

Even her husband realizes it but felt helpless.

40-year-old Saravanamuthu developed a bed with an attached toilet pot that helps a patient relieve herself without anyone’s assistance,

Speaking to The Better India, Mr. Saravanamuthu says, “It was very difficult for my wife to depend on people, something she has never done in her life. She preferred controlling herself over asking for people’s help. This was affecting her health, so I decided to make a bed with a provision of a toilet.”

Construction:

The Bed is fitted with a 12-volt battery to operate two gear motors, Remote controlled flushing systems for pot, Flush tank, a closet and a pipe connected to the septic tank.

How it Works:

Two gear motors are placed for moving the attached toilet pot vertically and sideways. It can also be controlled by remote for flushing system for the pot, which makes it easier to use to flush after use.

After his brilliant invention, the local newspaper wrote about him. He also got his first order from a man in Chennai whose mother had been confined to bed for six years in 2015. In very short time, The demand for his invention increased.

A few months later he also got an opportunity to speak to the former president of India, APJ Abdul Kalam, who motivated him to apply for the National Innovation Foundation.

National Innovation Foundation is a government operated that helps innovations at the small levels. He received a trophy, a certificate and Rs 2 lakh from president Ram Nath Koind along with reimbursement of Rs 35,000 for making the prototype.

After this, he has been receiving orders from across the country with over 350 requests from Chennai alone.

Speaking to The Better India he says, “I have two goals- make a fuel-free car and become a role model for children.” He even started working for it.

It's interesting to see a person who has no formal education, No Financial background managed to stand out from people.

As it was Stephen King who once said, “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separated the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”

INTRODUCING THE DOT BRAILLE SMART WATCH FOR THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED

The First Braille & Tactile Bluetooth Smartwatch

Good vision is a precious gift but unfortunately loss of vision is becoming common now a days. Blindness may result from a disease, injury or other conditions that limit vision and because of which Blind people faces number of challenges everyday.

Everyday is a new adventure for blind people. Nobody see them, they just see their disability. People generally think blind people as their liability.

But, Technology for the disabled has made numerous advances over the recent years. The things they have been doing to help disabled people to be able to stay with the advances that have been going on in the world is proceeding nicely.

This helps the disabled do basic things that we have thought to be an easily accessible occurrence. One such assertive technology for the visually challenged is Dot Watch.

Most of the watches used now a days can not be used by blind people

Introduction to Dot watch:

Meet the Dot Watch for blind people, it uses Braille to give the time. 

The Dot watch is made by developers from Korea, the interesting thing about the dot watch is that it does not only tell time but it also tells the notifications .

One can connect the Dot watch to smart phone and can get the notifications from phone.

The case of dot is made of aluminum to keep weight down (27 grams) and it measures in at 43mm across and 12.5 mm thick and depth of 12.5mm.

Colour:

Silver

Battery:

400mAh and can be fully charged up to 2 hours.

Supported Languages:

Korean , English, Chinese, Vietnamese, German, Spanish, French, Russian, Arabic

Supported ios Device:

iPhone 5s and above

Supported Android device:

Galaxy S4 mini (4.4.4)

Galaxy Note3 (5.0)
Galaxy s5 (6.0.1)
Galaxy S6 (7.0)
Galaxy J3 (6.0.1)
Galaxy A7 (6.0.1)
Galaxy Folder (5.1.1)
Galaxy S7 (7.0)
Galaxy S8 (8.0)
LG V10 (6.0)
LG X% (6.0.1)

How It Works ?

Underneath the dial are four motorized modules, each with six possible dots. Each dot can be raised or lowered individually. so the Dot can display up to four braille characters at a time.

Dot watch gives a new sense of time.  It provides direct access to practical features like Time and date,Alarm clock, Timer and stopwatch, It even tells us time down the second.

when an call come the Dot watch vibrates and the dot watch tells person who is calling. One can accept the call or denies the call just by pressing the button.

Technology should be accessible to everybody. That's why the Dot Watch can be set to Tactile Mode, which works completely without knowledge of Braille; the time is simply displayed through the number of dots.

A small idea with huge impact.

To know more abut Dot Watch Click here

PLASTIC THAT KILL ITSELF | INVENTION THAT COULD SAVE ENVIRONMENT

DESIGNING THE DEATH OF PLASTIC 

Everyone wants to save the environment by not using plastic but the truth is plastic has become such an integral part of our day to day life that it is impossible to avoid the plastic fully. 

Here Adam Feinberg from university of Illinois at Urbana Champaign designed the death of the plastic.

Yes, you heard it right !

Sounds Impossible, But its true ! 

Let's see how it works.

The plastic what we used in day to day life is made up of ssynthetic polymers, because they were cheap and durable material.  

Most synthetic polymers don't decompose or disintegrate themselves in fact they were made to last as long as possible results in being used in vast majority of applications.

Plastic indeed is very dangerous for environment which leads scientist to design a plastic that destruct or disintegrate on their commands.

How It Works ?

As per process of making this plastic and working stated by scientist the starting point requires picking polymers that are inherently unstable;e, and often historically overlooked because of their fragility given a choice, their units would rather stay as small molecules. 

What scientist do is force those molecules to link up into long chains, and then trap the resulting polymers.

  A demonstration of plastic being degraded by high-powered light. Dr. Feinberg used one watt per square centimeter of white light to eat away at the middle of the material as it was held between two clamps.

Dismantling these polymers is sometimes called unzipping them because once the polymers encounter a trigger that removes those traps, their units fall off one after another until the polymers have completely switched back to small molecules.

"As soon as you start the process it just keep going and destructs itself."

The polymers are imprisoned in circular loop instead of open loops  They have mixed with a Little bit of yellow, light sensitive dye. when the light shines on the plastic, the energized dye molecules rip electrons out from the polymers. The loops break, exposing the polymer ends, and the polymers unzip.

  A plastic sample under U.V. light. The samples contained a yellow dye, DCA, that interacts with the polymer and starts the unzipping process

In the theory, these next generations polymers could help environment by replacing plastic. most recycling done today involves melting of plastic and moulding. 

Will it Replace Plastic?

"In my view it has great potential, the problem is to make it cheap enough and to make the properties competitive enough to be useful and have market penetration for the consumer,: Dr. Hillnyer said.

Hence Economically replacing the all the plastic might not be feasible.

But still some scientists like Dr. Hillmyer says," Used chemically recyclable materials could become practical especially if companies begin taking responsibility for their products after their useful life."

He co-founded a start-up company Valerian Materials to commercialize the recyclable polyurethane. 

"If car companies had to take back a used car, for instance, it might make sense to have an internal chemical recycling system to make new materials from old ones,"he says.

It can also be useful to recycle laminates, composites and even electronics which we are not really Good at right now.

The Conclusion

Designing the plastics which can disintegrate itself will be gift to the environment. It could be used for recycling of plastic which will leads to better usage of materials and low pollution. 

But still It is expensive compare to the plastic which is in use. It is the biggest problem that scientist are facing. 

As lots of scientist are studying on this theory we hope that one day it will come true.

Image Source: Google Images, The new york Times

Orignal article Published souce : The new york times

Ooho- The Alternative of Plastic Bottles could save the enviornment

According to the survey Annual consumption of plastic bottles is set to top half a trillion by 2021, far outstripping recycling efforts and jeopardizing oceans, coastlines and other environments.

Annual consumption of plastic bottles is set to top half a trillion by 2021, 

The demand for plastic bottles rises to 20,000 bottles per second. It has become so common to see a vast amount of plastic bottles in the ocean. 

According to a survey by an environmental scientist, oceans will hold more plastic bottles than fish by the year 2020.

They take 700 years to decompose, so changing the way we package our drinks is imperative to the protection of the environment. 

How?

The Skipping Rocks Labs have found the alternative to plastic bottles.

The water you can eat. Yes, you heard it Right

What is Ooho?

“Ooho is as sustainable flexible packaging for liquids made from seaweed-extract. As such it is a 100% natural alternative to plastic bottles, cups, and sachets. The Ooho material degrades in a natural environment in 6 weeks on average and is also edible.” Says founders of Ooho.

Their Maia goal is used to use these edible water balls in marathons, races, events and at other functions where lots of plastic bottles are used. But the application of Ooho is not limited to this.

“you can put almost any liquid in an Ooho, but the important thing is that is is an ‘on-the-go’ situation which best suits the materials natural properties. 

We’re trailing it as a replacement for small water bottles out and about, for fresh juices that are made daily, for sauces and condiments used by fast food restaurants and included in fresh salads, and for hydration in sporting events like marathons.” Says by a team of Ooho

Will it replace Plastic Bottles?

We can prevent plastic and we can make our society free of plastic for storing water but I also think that one is not suitable for while traveling. Because deleterious structure may break in the middle.

Also to all these, it has to pack in packages which will require large costs. And importantly their main goal is to avoid any packaging which will be not reached.

One of the main criticism raises about Hygienics of the edible balls. Imagine if it is placed in an open environment, the pollution, mosquitos, dirty hands and due to lots of other reasons, these edible water balls can become unhealthy for humans to consume.

Even though out of these drawbacks developers are studying and researching more about it to make this produc a better product.

Ooho 

Solar Windows : Fututre Energy Harvesting Technique

WHAT IS SOLAR WINDOW?

When you think about Solar Panels, you think of those large black squares that are mounted on a rooftop or in fields.

But what if we were able to start getting our solar panels to look like windows.

Sounds Impossible Right?

But Its not, A Michigan State University researchers have found the founded the solar panel which exactly looks like windows. Imagine tall Skyscraper harvesting energy all day with the help of solar windows.

HOW IT WORKS

Instead of trying to create a transparent photovoltaic cell, they use a transparent luminescent solar concentrator(TLSC). The TLSC consists of organic salts that absorb specific nonvisible wavelengths of ultraviolet and infrared light, which they then luminesce (glow) as another wavelength of infrared light.

It Captures the part of the solar spectrum that one can’t see with the naked eye. It Captures the ultraviolet and infrared parts of the solar spectrum and then infrared light gets guided to the edge of the glass. Glass edge contains very thin solar cells which converts energy into electricity.

USE OF SOLAR WINDOWS

“Any buildings containing solar windows will be able to generate enough power which can power the entire buildings. The building will still look exactly like the old building even after implementing the technology and that’s the most interesting thing about this innovation.”Professor lunt says.

The application of solar windows are not only limited to buildings, but it can also be used in automobiles. Electronics and other wide range of applications.

“It can be used on tall buildings with lots of windows or any kind of mobile device that demands high aesthetic quality like a phone or e-reader. Ultimately we want to make solar harvesting surfaces that you do not even know are there,” says by Blog of Michigan University.

Solar Windows can give our cities to harvest their own energy needs. It will make a very huge impact on the environment. Single Installation can avoid 2.2 million miles of CO2 vehicle pollution;12-times more than solar panels.

Tribute to Mother Earth

Plastic Pollution

Plastics are a part of our daily life. Plastics can be used in Construction, Electrical and electronic applications, food packaging etc.

Plastic on Environment

They are cheap and easily manufactured material. But are they good for the environment?

Of course NO!

Levels of plastic pollution are very high. As of 2018, about 380 million tons of plastic produced worldwide each year also their degradation rate is very slow results in the accumulation of a large amount of plastic.

Effects of Plastic Pollution

Plastic pollution has the potential to poison animals, which can then adversely affect human food supplies. It is harmful to humans as well.

                              

How to Reduce Plastic Pollution?

There are lots of ways have been proposed to reduce the harmful effects such as Incineration. Biodegradable and degradable plastics etc.

Ashwath Hegade, a Mangalore born but now Qatar based NRI entrepreneur finds a brilliant solution for it.

Plastic bags which are degradable, but not only degradable but also edible.

Yes, Edible Plastic Bags.

After researching the problem for about four years, Ashwath founded EnviGreen- a company that produces 100% organic, biodegradable, and eco-friendly bags.

                                

 

They look like plastic bags but they are not. They are made of materials like starch and vegetable oil derivatives hence it has no harm to animals even if ingested. If place in a glass of water at normal temperature, an evergreen bag dissolves in a day, And when placed in a glass of boiling water, it dissolved in just 15 seconds! These bags take less than 180 days to biodegrade naturally once discarded.

EG Bags : Saving the World with Envigreen

The materials used for the manufacturing of evergreen bags we use all the raw materials as many as 12 ingredients including potato, tapioca, corn, natural starch, vegetable oil, banana and flower oil. They go through a complex six-step procedure to arrive at the end product.

They also got the certificate by Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB).

 

 

When Reporter asks him about his launch in India he said, ”With operations running successfully in certain pockets of the Middle East, including Qatar and Abu Dhabi, we now feel ready to enter the Indian market. It was quite a challenge to get the necessary approach from agencies and government offices. Financial management has not been easy too since we are not funded”

   EnviGreen- Tribute to mother earth.