Mumbai: Instances of children falling in unattended borewells in India has considerably increased in the recent past few years. Few past examples include incidents of Prince and Mahi who had fallen in borewells in Haryana in 2006 and 2012 respectively. A recent episode includes 4-year old Akshata, fell into a dry borewell in Karnataka and unfortunately couldn’t be saved.
An Indian professor M. Manikandan, whose own 3-year old son suffered a similar incident, went ahead to develop a robot with a human-like arm that can rescue (pull out) kids from borewells. The robot has human-like arms, with finger clamps, which allow it to grasp the child from within the borewell.
Explaining on the concept, Manikandan stated, ‘the concept was formed after my 3-year-old son had fallen into an unmanned borewell. At that very moment, I decided to create something that could go into the borewell, similar to a human being.’ The device is battery powered, which means it can be used in remote areas too. It is also equipped with a night-vision camera and a display, which captures live videos to track children in the deepest corners of the borewell.
Professor M. Manikandan also stated that he would be taking forward this concept to produce more of these robots, which will reduce such unexpected incidents in future. Watch the video of the robot in action where the professor demonstrated a mock incident of a doll fallen into a borewell.
