THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A group of students
from the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi
(IIT-Delhi) bagged the best project at the
ninth National Innovation Contest — TechTop
2014 which concluded here on Saturday.
An affordable refreshable Braille display got
the best project award. Ankit Kumar, Dhruv
Gupta and Pulkit Sapra from the mechanical
engineering department, showcased a facility
that will help more usage of the Braille
display among visually challenged.
The students got a cash prize of Rs.one lakh.
The two-day event was held at the Mar
Baselios College of Engineering and
Technology.
The winners said the idea for this project
came after visiting a blind school Saksham
Daksh in Noida. They said blind people were
not able to 'read' digital content and have to
either print on Braille paper which was
expensive and cumbersome or 'listen' to the
text using screen reading software.
The innovation lies in the actuator design
using a compliant system based on shape
memory alloy (SMA) technology. The new
design has reduced the price of the display to
less than one-tenth of the current technology.
As many as 13 innovative projects on health,
travel and agriculture from across the
country was exhibited at TechTop-2014.
VK Damodaran, jury chairman of the contest
said judging the 13 projects was very
challenging at the same time interesting for
the jury.
"Majority of the projects showcased were
focused on humanitarian technologies.
Students who have participated this year,
have taken efforts to explore new sectors with
their projects," said Damodaran.
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