Close to two years since they started work on a robot to locate people trapped in disaster zones, two city-based students have created a prototype.
The Class 8 students of Delhi Public School here, Shlok Jhawar, 13, and Anuj Verma, 14, were moved by the challenges to rescuing victims of the Nepal 
earthquake in 2015. “The death toll during the Nepal earthquake in 2015 was high as many could not be rescued from under the debris. Usually, rescue teams find it extremely difficult to rescue people from disaster zones, and it puts their lives at risk too,” said Anuj.
So they decided to build a robot to help rescue teams. “Moreover, a robot can return very precise results that are backed by facts and not assumptions,” he added. Their recovery and surveillance robot, Recon Rover, can scour every nook and corner of disaster sites to locate trapped victims.
The robot has an infrared sensor that can pick up the presence of humans, and three ultrasonic sensors to also avoid obstacles. The boys took a year and eight months to build the robot. They first showcased plans for the robot during instrumentation software National Instruments’ annual graphic design competition, Niyantra 2015.
“It was the first major competition Anuj and I participated in. After lengthy discussions, we decided to make a disaster recovery and surveillance robot, which fell in line with what we were good at and which would also be very useful in implementation,” said Shlok.
The two boys aim to join Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and pursue robotics and engineering. “My father often recalls how his education was more theory and not practical. This method of learning while experimenting and innovating is different and it will help budding engineers like us,” said Shlok.
“Every year, we organize a student design competition called Niyantra where we receive over 1,000 ideas from engineering students all over India. Over the years, we have seen that these student projects have come a long way. Many of these projects derive inspiration from real problems in society ,” said Jayaram Pillai, managing director, National Instruments (India, Russia and Arabia).
