Technology and robotics are becoming very significant domains of studies. The students in good numbers are exploring these fields from early school and are opening themselves to new opportunities to thrive in future. 

Mohammad Hammad, a student of grade 10 from Delhi Public School, Srinagar has started taking interest in technology from sometime after watching the relevance of the field. 

Recently, he passed the Advanced Placement exams for computer science from college board USA, which is an organization that provides various opportunities to students for higher studies. “I have scored 5 out of 5 which is the highest. This exam helps a student to get college credits and other benefits,” he said. 

He has planned to pursue computer science for his higher studies but robotics is something that interests him and in the past, he has made a lot of projects. 

For the ongoing Inspire Manak Awards, he has submitted his idea about automatic waste segregator to tackle the waste mismanagement problem. The waste segregator detects three different types of waste-wet, dry and magnetic waste and sorts them into three different chambers. It had additional features as well. Counting the quantity of each type of waste and waste level indicator are some of the features. 

“I am hopeful that my idea will be selected. The problem of waste management bothers us all and we need to find innovative ways before this place becomes a dumping site,” he said. 

In his free time, he prefers to work on his computers. For his upcoming Mathematics exhibition, he has decided to present a computer program. 

“We have a Maths exhibition in a few days. Most of the students are making models and charts. I have decided to make a computer program which I am going to present in the exhibition,” he said.

Hammad said that since childhood, he was interested in computers and at home, he would fiddle with his dad’s desktop of the late 90s.

In the future, he wants to pursue cyber security and be a software engineer. “It’s an interesting field but in Kashmir, things happen a bit late. For a better education, one has to go outside and pursue the studies, for here is a dearth of courses and infrastructure,” he said.  

Mohammad Hisham, anotherclass 10 student of Delhi Public School Srinagar, has participated at a number of Science and Technology events. Currently he is working on his project for the Inspire Manak Award. He has made an artificially intelligent wheelchair for quadriplegic patients. Quadriplegia is a symptom of paralysis that affects a person's limbs and body from the neck down.

The wheelchair has multiple features which allows the patient to navigate and help the assistant to help the patients in navigation. Working on the multilingual voice command from the user, the wheelchair is the amalgamation of concepts of robotics, artificial intelligence and IOT. 

“My motive is to give freedom to such patients. The people assisting such patients will get the regular updates about the patient such as location so that they will be able to track them. The chair will also have a fall detection which will buzz when a patient falls down and send the person for help. I have also attached the retractable table with it for easy fetching and picking things up. This has huge scope for improvement in future,” he said. 

In National Children's Science Congress (NCSC), a nationwide Science Communication program, he presented a research-based project on the specific species of fish called Schizothrax Niger which is found in Dal Lake. 

“Schizothrax Niger is a native species of Kashmir, and it has been on decline because of the introduction of other species. I researched about that and presented it in SKUAST but due to the covid, the other stages of the program were cancelled,” he said. 

Both of the students have participated in the program organized by Intel in collaborated with CBSC. In the 14-day bootcamp for artificial intelligence, both of them made projects separately and were awarded with a certification of accomplishment as well. 

He said, “the robotics and computer science fields are vast and has a plenty of opportunities to offer. One has to start from the beginning if they have to do something in future.”