Class 7 boy designs car using scrap

Syed Zyme, a class 7 student of Christ School, was fasci nated by remote-controlled cars. "All children want to play with such cars and I too wanted one. But my father said it was a waste of money . So, I made my own car using scrap material and spent just Rs 100 on it," he said. Cool drink bottle caps were his car wheels and a cardboard sheet its body. His white-blue car was a major draw at the two-day innovation festival organized by the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum here on Saturday . "My father was happy when my car started going all over the house and I was controlling it with the switch I had prepared. When I showed it in school, my teachers liked it too," said a proud Zyme, who added that children can cre ate their own electric cars. The festival had a wide range of creative stuff made from scrap ranging from a key hanger made of a water bottle covered with socks with hooks fixed to water bottles to chandelier made of coconut shells. For Aishwarya M, a 9-year-old student of Mariam Nilayam School, a discarded coconut shell looked like a tabla base. She covered two halves of the shells with white paper and started playing on it with straws. "Don't you hear a melody?" Aishwarya asked visitors at the festival. A tilt rotor aircraft the US lauched in 2006 for surveillance was replicated at the exhibition by students of MEI Polytechnic. Abrar Ahmed Khan, a diploma student who designed the miniature, said it can be used for data collection. "In emergency, the aircraft will fly like an airplane. We can also get real-time imaging by fixing a smartphone to it and connecting through Skype," said Khan. The festival also witnessed highaltitude surveillance drones prepared by two students of VSM Aerospace Institute. Out-of-box ideas Why should a boat depend on electricity or oil for its run? Why can't it use wind was the question of A P Subbaiah, a class 6 student from Sri Vidya Kendra school. The 11-year-old came up with an airboat he designed and exhibited at the festival. Shreyas Sudhir, a class VI student, used the fridgecovering thermocol to make an amphibian tanker that can run on both land and water. "This is an opportunity for children to think differently and innovate. Over 25 children from different schools took part," said K A Sadhana, curator, VITM. -TOI