Interesting Projects Form Part of the 5th National Level Exhibition and Project Competitions (NLEPC) at IIT Delhi
Introduction
Union Minister for Science and Technology Dr Harsh Vardhan takes keen Interest and Interacts with Student Exhibitors
Three (3) students will be awarded National prizes and 57 consolation prizes for winners in. The NLEPC was held yesterday and today along with the India International Science Festival at IIT Delhi. The Union Minister for Science and Technology & Earth Sciences Dr Harsh Vardhan after inaugurating the exhibition interacted with the INSPIRE students and took a round to see their projects.
699 students who had earlier competed at District level and State Level competition and short listed for the National Exhibition are participating in this 5th NLEPC held under INSPIRE programme.
Several School children from various Delhi schools are also visiting the INSPIRE Exhibition stalls inaugurated by the Minister along with Secretary, DST, Prof. Ashutosh Sharma, Director, IIT, Prof. Kshitij Gupta, Secretary General, VIBHA Shri Jaya Kumar and senior officials from DST, IIT and TIFAC. Speaking on the occasion Dr. Harsh Vardhan expressed happiness that most of the innovations presented at NLEPC also stem from the aim of improve day-to-day life of the common people.
A jury of 200 scientists will be judging the science projects /models and will be interacting with the students to shortlist 60 winners.
Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) is a national programme implemented by the Ministry of Science & Technology for attraction of talent amongst the students to study Science and pursue career with research. The basic objective of the programme is to communicate to the youth of the country the excitement of creative pursuit of science, attract talent to the study of science at an early age and thus build the required critical human resource pool for strengthening and expanding the science and technology system and R&D base. The programme was launched by the Prime Minister on 13th December 2008. The implementation started during 2009-10.
INSPIRE Award, is implemented centrally through the States/ UTs. Under this scheme, during the five year period two students are selected from each middle and high school of the country for an INSPIRE Award of Rs.5000/- each for preparing a Science Project / Model. These awardees, who are students from classes 6th to 10th, then participate in a three tier competition: District, State and National Level. The projects exhibited are evaluated by a jury of experts. All the 29 states and 7 UTs are participating in the scheme. The Scheme is continuing in the 12th Five Year Plan.
In so far as INSPIRE Award component is concerned, 12.94 lakhs INSPIRE Awards have been sanctioned till date. About 47 % of the awardees are girls and 26% SCs/STs.
Most exhibits are basically themed on energy conservation, lowering cost of household and farming devices, water-harvesting, curbing road accidents, simple anti-terror gadgets, better waste management, stemming atmospheric and water pollution, robotics etc.
For instance, Telangana teenager M. Shilpa has come up with a model that shows how sensors safely buried below urban roads ahead of busy junctions can sound quick alerts on passage of bomb-carrying vehicles above them.
Zulfa Iqbal of a Srinagar school has displayed a machine that will cut short the time to make the famed numdah rugs of the Kashmir Valley to just seven minutes instead of a whole day’s manual labour. Two boys from the Andaman & Nicobar Islands have developed a spy car that can go deep into otherwise inaccessible forest and return with video and still visuals.
How human urine can simply converted into an effective organic fertiliser is the focus of a little scientist from Palanpur in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district. Diagonally opposite, from the east, ‘Common Balance for the Blind Grocer’ is the item presented by Sima Pal from near Malda of Bengal region. Still farther, from the Northeast, a customised power loom invented by a Manipuri student from Bishnupur is along equipment displayed by children from Sikkim and Nagaland of the region.
Novel ways of conserving water is among the themes of items from the desert state of Rajasthan, while students from hilly Himachal Pradesh have devised apparatus that can handle disaster management better. A head motion-controlled wheelchair is on display from a Chandigarh student. A boy from Angul district of Odisha has come up with a theft-proof motorbike.
A class X boy from Jharkhand Pranav Kumar has come up with a model of a train where passengers can board and get down at stations without it stopping, thus saving the energy lost over restarting the engine. Kerala’s Devang M of Mattannur has modelled a boat that can withstand sinking. There were over 700 similar such exhibits from students across the country.
Source
Press Information Bureau, December 07, 2015
