Boy designs stick with sensors for blind,wins top award

A student of Delhi Public School-RK Puram,Shantanu is now busy with his Class XII studies,but says he hopes to produce his innovation on a commercial scale once he has more time on his hands. Shantanu was awarded the CSIR Diamond Jubilee Invention Award for School Children 2010,along with another Class XII student,Ankit Kumar Mittal from Barnala in Punjab,on September 26.

The infrared sensors in the walking stick can detect objects within one-foot range. On detecting an obstacle,the sensor sends signals to a motor connected to it,which in turn vibrates,alerting the user.

“I saw blind students at school having a hard time in moving around. They could not detect obstacles and would bump into them,” says the young inventor. He hopes his invention will help fill this gap.

Shantanu was helped by his Electronics teacher,Desh Raj Dhingra,on the ‘Smart Stick’ project. It took six months to complete and required an investment of Rs 800.

“If made on a commercial scale,it will be much cheaper. When I am done with my Class XII,I hope to see how the stick works in real-life situations by providing the model to organisations working with visually impaired,” he says.

Shantanu also has plans to improve the prototype,using sensors with higher range. “If we use an ultra-sonic sensor,it can detect obstacles in a two to three metre range. This sensor will cost a little more,” he says.

Shantanu’s father,Dr Dharmendra Singh Gangwar,is an IAS officer currently serving as Chief Vigilance Officer at the State Trading Corporation and his mother,Dr Neeta Singh,works at AIIMS.

His engineering dreams follow those of his brother Shashwat Gangwar,a second-year B Tech student at IIT-Delhi.

With first invention a success,Shantanu is now working on a new project,which he says is a secret. “Let me see how it turns out,I don’t want to reveal it now,” he says. The other boy to win the award,Ankit came up with an innovative two-piece zip lock,which is easier to repair than the regular one-piece lock.

The two inventions were selected out of 353 proposals received in different categories.