Children and their minds work in mysterious ways. What we might find trivial, might keep them fascinated for hours on end and what they find fun, might not interest us in any way. So during a session facilitated by Better By Design, an EdTech start-up based out of Hyderabad, children thought about the problems they see and mulled over solutions. And by doing so, awakened the innovator within them. Here are a few innovations which were showcased at the session that caught our eye.
Door-to-door
As enthusiastically as Kushal Wadhwa would wait for 5 pm so that he could rush out of his house to play, he would often get called right back by his mother because he would forget to shut the door. "No, I did not want to make something that closes the door for me as that would make me lazy," quips the student of CHIREC International School. Instead, he made a prototype that uses a cup with a hole at the bottom attached to a slide. Whenever the 13-year-old forgets to close the door, above it, a motor is turned on and the slide gives way to slime, which falls on his head.
Break it up
After watching his mother struggle to break open a coconut, Aniket Topey decided that it was time to develop a solution for it. "What I made is a complex machine where a coconut is held in place by a wedge and with the help of a pulley, a weight, which is tied above it, falls when the lever is pulled down," explains the 12-year-old student of Silver Oaks International School who made the prototype with the help of his parents.
Hands off!
Anika Thukuntla's frustration knew no bounds when every day, she would come home from school to find her pencils and pens mysteriously missing from her pen stand. So, what was the 13-year-old's solution? She made a pen stand with a cactus, which prevents others from touching the stationery and even a finger trapper, in case their fingers manage to get past the cactus. "I thought the workshop would be boring, but I really enjoyed it," says the student of CHIREC International School emphatically.
Keeping 'em green
At home, it is 13-year-old Shreya Seshadri's job to water the plants and she wanted to make sure that she sees it through. So, she made a prototype where a moisture-sensor detects if the plants need watering. If they do, the prototype — with a pulley and a zip line in place — will pour water on the floor outside the door, so that no one thinks about stepping out without watering the plants. "I did not want just an alarm, I wanted to create something wacky. The next problem I want to solve is carrying our laundry from the first floor to the second," says the student of Silver Oaks International School eagerly.
He's in line
Looking at their Pappaiah (groundsman) painstakingly drawing chalk lines on the school's playground, Aarav Bist thought of an idea. He ideated a barrel made of cardboard with small holes in it that would make the job easier. "My idea was to fully automate the process," says the 13-year-old student of CHIREC International School who wants to grow up to be an architect.
