“This pipe is designed to suck in all the dirty air that comes from automobiles on our city's busy roads and send it to an air treatment plant where it will be converted into clean air and then released in residential areas, giving citizens a blast of fresh, clean air,” says Mayank Hooda, an earnest-looking Class X student of O. P. Jindal Modern School here.
Mayank is describing the purpose of his creation, ‘the green basket', at the national-level science fair organised by the Central Board of Secondary Education at Modern School, Barakhamba Road, on Friday.
For life's challenges
The theme for this year's fair is ‘Science & Technology for Challenges in Life'. There are separate sub-themes like bio-diversity, agriculture and green energy with about 360 students from 180 schools competing for the coveted certificate of merit and a cash prize of Rs.3,000 as well as the chance to compete at the Jawaharlal Nehru Science Exhibition slated for November.
‘The green basket' has some tough competitors, including custom-made generators that convert drainage water into electricity and complex devices designed to draw energy from the earth and convert it into electricity.
“Electricity can be generated through smart speed-breakers on the road…do you want to know how?” asks 15-year-old Sai Swaroop addressing a group of school children gathered round a contraption designed to look like a race track.
A tough crowd
His associate Kaushik then steps in to explain: “There are magnets, wires and copper fitted underneath the speed-breaker. So each time a vehicle passes over it, electricity is automatically generated and stored in a separate contraption”.
The audience comprises science enthusiasts from other schools who don't seem very convinced. A debate ensues on the merits of the exhibit, and the duo are made to explain, in great detail, how they assembled their display and transported it from Hyderabad.
“We were told two days before that we had been selected for the nationals. Since we had no time to think about how we were going to fix everything in Delhi, we just assembled everything in Hyderabad and brought it with us on the 24-hour train ride,” explains Sai Swaroop.
The speed-breaker design shares space with another exhibit, a special ‘Chemi-organo E2 fertiliser' invented by two girls from Indore's Satya Sai Vidya Vihar School.
“We have been interacting with farmers and agricultural scientists since May and we had to get all our material by train and assemble it here,” says Varuna Bhambhani while her associate encourages passers-by to take a look at some foul-smelling uncoated urea, the agent responsible for crop loss. It can only be prevented, say the girls, by the use of their special fertiliser.
Nanditha and Anuj from South Indian Cultural Association School in Indore have come with their own recipe of vinegar.
Vinegar-y buzz
“If you put the vinegar, copper and zinc in water, there is a chemical reaction which creates electrical energy,” explains Nanditha, showing charts and pictures of how the vinegar was made from Jamun fruits.While most of the participants belong to Class X and above, there are a few who are from the lower classes.
Twelve-year-olds Kshitish and Vashisth of Delhi Public School, Orissa, have travelled with their physics teacher to showcase their automated railway-manning machine. “We want to provide a solution to cope with unmanned railway signals,” says Kshitish.
He adds that there are also a few patent experts among the judges, and hopefully they might consider this invention worthy enough for a patent. “I think they have automatic railway signals abroad though,” muses Vashisth.
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