Bangalore-based Ashish S, Priyesh Tiwari, P. Kiran Kumar Reddy and Udith Raju — all class IX students of the Air Force School (AFS), Hebbal, bonded together under the name and style of Team Cloneators — were crowned champions of Teenovators 2015-16, an annual national inter-school science and technology competition, the finals of which were staged at Manipal University, Udupi, on January 30. The quartet presented a high-powered jury their well-researched ‘Cloneator’ robotic device and sufficiently impressed it during a gruelling Q&A to bag the first prize — a bumper cash award of Rs.5 lakh. Garden High International School, Kolkata and Bharatiya Jain Sanghatan Junior College, Pune, were adjudged the first and second runners-up. Teenovators 2015-16, centred on the theme ‘creating for a social cause’, drew participation of 150,000 students from 400 schools countrywide. Organised by Manipal University in association with the Bangalore-based INKtalks, the competitive event provides young inventors a platform to showcase their creative and innovative skills. According to their project synopsis, Team Cloneators was required to design and construct a prosthetic equipped with bio mimicry capabilities. “Our model designed for amputees needing prosthetic limbs had two components — the TX (transmitter) robot which can be strapped onto the working limb, and the RX (receiver) robot which can be used as a prosthetic limb, connected by a wire series. The value addition of our invention is that it greatly improves the speed, flexibility and manoeuvrability of prosthetic limbs,” explains team leader Ashish S. Team Cloneators was ably guided by parents, school faculty and mentors from Manipal U. “We are extremely grateful to our physics teacher Revathy and our Manipal University mentors Karl, Srinivasan and Teja for the considerable time they invested in helping us design our robot,” says Priyesh, speaking on behalf of the team. Having returned from Teenovators after learning valuable lessons about the power of teamwork in finding solutions to everyday problems, the quartet plans to compete in more national and international competitions before signing up for engineering degree programmes after completing Plus Two in 2019. Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore) Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp
