Vikram Sarabhai Centeranry Exhibition: Young Minds At Work

Bhubaneswar: Emotionally moved by reports of farmers committing suicide because of crop failure, 16-year-old Rishikesh Amit Nayak thought someone should go to the root of the problem. Two years later, he has come up with a device which can alert even an uneducated farmer about pest and bacteria attacks in his field and initiate remedial action to save the crop. “Crop failure has many reasons but the most common is pest attack. Once the crop is attacked by pests and the farmer is not able to detect it, it can destroy the entire crop,” Amit, a student of Class XI at the DAV Public School, Chandrasekharpur here, said.

Amit’s device, which he has named ‘Kishan Know’, was on display at the exhibition for school and college students held at the SOA Deemed to be University here from November 17 to commemorate the birth centenary of legendary scientist Vikram Sarabhai. The program was jointly organised by the Satish Dhawan Space Center SHAR, Sriharikota (ISRO) and SOA. “My grandfather is a farmer and I have seen him depressed when crop failure occured. It motivated me to go deep into the problem and find out what could be done,” he said adding he had applied for patenting his device.

Amit, who took the advice of experts at the Odisha University for Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) here, said crop failures were generally caused by excessive rainfall and scarcity of water besides bacterial and fungal attacks. He focused on bacteria as it accounted for 80 per cent of the crop loss. He developed the device to detect bacteria, fungi and virus in crops using the Internet of Things (IOT) to arrive at micro level solution. “The requirement is a GSM module, a chip of circuit that can be used to establish communication, and a thermal camera,” he said. The prototype when developed properly would cost about Rs 1500, Amit said adding the farmer would have to move around the field, in the perimeter where the pest attacks occur first, to take the thermal images of the plants. He would need to do the exercise twice, once in the morning and then in the evening, and send the data to a database for analysis.

“If any change is found in the plant temperature it would indicate certain pest or bacteria attack in the field enabling the farmer to undertake remedial measures,” he said. Two boys from KIIT International School proudly displayed the model of a basic underwater vehicle equipped with a camera with a floating component which is a separate part. Aniket Biswal and Pratik Mishra, students of Class XII, said the contraption could be useful for spying purposes and navigation. The vessel, which would run on green electricity, by using solar panels for power generation, could also use sea water for the same purpose.

Ten-year-old Sarthak Mishra, a student of Class IV in DAV Public School, displayed a model of a traffic square with a difference. “He always felt uncomfortable, particularly during the summer, when we had to stop at traffic junctions,” his mother said. Sarthak had come up with an idea that the roads should have sheds covering a sizeable space to ensure that commuters were provided with shade which should also have solar panels to generate electricity. If fans can be installed on the road side using solar power, stopping at traffic red light zones would be a good experience. “In fact, people would look forward to stop at junctions for a few minutes of shed and breeze,” he said adding he had named his project ‘Green Square’.