Just like any other girl her age, 12-year-old Kavya Vignesh likes to have fun when she is not studying. But unlike many others, she likes to make those moments memorable by creating something that helps solve some real-world problems.Yes, you read that right. These days, she is busy giving final touches to a robot that has the potential to save honey bees in residential areas\u2014and for making a presentation of her bot at an international robotics event to be held in Denmark next month.<\/p>\n
Vignesh, a Class 7 student of Delhi Public School, Vasant Kunj, is part of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious\u2014India\u2019s youngest ever team to qualify for the First Lego League – European Open championship in Aarhus, scheduled for May this year.<\/p>\n
Using a combination of robotics and hi-tech components, Vignesh has developed a Bee Saver Bot that removes honey bees\u2014the species primarily responsible for pollination and honey production around the world\u2014safely and carefully without harming them or humans.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been practising Robotics since I was nine. My aim in life is to use the power of robotics to solve some real-world problems,\u201d Vignesh told IANS.<\/p>\n
Over the past three years, she has won several robotics championships (Delhi Regional robotics championship 2015 and 2016) and is now excited about representing India in the forthcoming international competition.<\/p>\n
The robot\u2014Lightning McQueen\u2014is made using Lego Mindstorms EV3, the third generation robotics kit in Lego\u2019s Mindstorms line.<\/p>\n
Lego Mindstorms is a programmable robotics construction set that gives you the power to build, programme and command your own LEGO robots. The Lightning McQueen uses EV3 large motors, colour sensors that are used for line following, gyro sensor to take accurate turns, and pneumatics for multi-tasking.<\/p>\n
The First Lego League championship is organised by FIRST Scandinavia foundation in cooperation with the city of Aarhus, Aarhus University, Aarhus School of Marine and Technical Engineering and IT-forum.<\/p>\n
It will witness some 100 teams and 1,000 children from all over the world competing on their skills in construction, programming and presentation of ideas and solutions while also sharing their culture, values, making friends and having fun.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s why Vignesh chose only honey bees.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe chose honey bees, because they are mostly overlooked. Bees are mostly killed by us humans through pesticides, colony collapse disorder and many more ways,\u201d Vignesh said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe learnt that more than 85 per cent of the world\u2019s crops are pollinated by honey bees. Every third bite of food comes from a bee pollinated crop or animal that depends on bee pollination,\u201d she emphasised.<\/p>\n
In general, when people see a beehive near their houses and in parks and the like, they tend to call the pest controllers, who burn the hive, killing nearly 20,000 to 80,000 bees.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we thought of building a solution that can safely relocate the beehive without harming the bees,\u201d Vignesh said.<\/p>\n
The \u2018Bee Saver Bot\u2019 scans the beehive, and relocates it by building an enclosure that safely transports the beehive to the nearest bee farm, without harming any humans or bees.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis solution can save millions of bees from getting hurt and actually relocate them back to bee farms from where they can be back on the fields where they contribute so much to our food chain,\u201d the robotic champion noted.<\/p>\n
In her efforts to participate in the event, Vignesh started crowdfunding through Fueladream\u2014a Bengaluru-based platform that allows for pooling of funds for a cause.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough crowdfunding in India has been relatively a new concept, it is growing very quickly,\u201d Ranganath Thota, Founder and CEO at Fueladream, told IANS.<\/p>\n
\u201cFunding is the biggest challenge for students in India. Crowdfunding is a very democratic way to tell your stories and use social media and friends to raise money,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Vignesh\u2019s achievement also earned her praise from Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha.<\/p>\n
\u201cProud of 12-year-old Kavya Vignesh, representing India at the European Robotics Championship in Denmark,\u201d Sinha said in a tweet.<\/p>\n
Vignesh, who is also a digital graphic designer, said that she looks up to her mother, Shikha Suman, founder of a health-tech start-up, as her role model.<\/p>\n
\u201cBelieve in your dream and do whatever you want and don\u2019t let anyone bring you down,\u201d Vignesh said as a message to children.<\/p>\n
To parents who put all their focus on their children\u2019s studies alone, Vignesh says, \u201cAll work and no play may make children dumb; so they should balance out studies as well as such extra-curricular activities.\u201d<\/p>\n
IANS<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Picture source: Alamy Image<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Picture used for illustrative purposes alone<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just like any other girl her age, 12-year-old Kavya Vignesh likes to have fun when she is not studying. But unlike many others, she likes to make those moments memorable by creating something that helps solve some real-world problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[44,49],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}