A group of students from the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT-D) bagged the best project at the ninth National Innovation Contest - TechTop 2014 which concluded here 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.
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V.K. 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.