Nirmal Kumar Mahapatra (16) and Sailesh Ranjan (15) — class X students of Mother’s Public School (MPS), Bhubaneswar — were crowned champions at the National CBSE Science Exhibition 2015-16 staged in Delhi on February 8-10.

This annual science competition — open to class VI-XI students — conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education, drew 400 entries from 300 schools countrywide.

The MPS duo impressed the jury with their well-researched Wonder D-Rone, a robotic wheelchair designed for people with loco-motor disabilities, whose eye movements (left, right, straight, shut), determined by infra-red sensors, enable the wheelchair to move in the appropriate direction.

The theme of this year’s National CBSE Science Exhibition was ‘science and mathematics for inclusive development. “We began to develop the initial prototypes in the Creya XEL Design studio on our campus using building blocks and miniature sensors. Subsequently, we acquired a life-size wheelchair and began sourcing infra-red sensors and powerful motors to put our full-fledged prototype working model together. Finally, we programmed the robotic brain which drives the wheelchair. By repeatedly testing for design accuracy and reliability, we ensured mission success,” explains Nirmal.

The duo freely acknowledges the guidance and enablement of their parents, school faculty and Creya facilitator Sumanth. “We are very grateful to our Creya mentors for their support and help in designing our robot by working continuously and beyond school hours with us. And without the support of our principal and science teachers, we would never have been able to complete the project,” says Sailesh.

Inspired by the slew of innovations showcased by other finalists, their next challenge is to improve the model design through more competitions before signing up for engineering degree programmes after Plus Two. “My dream is to design robots for the benefit of humanity,” says Nirmal, while Sailesh dreams of becoming an IT entrepreneur.

Wind in your sails!

Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)