Innovators throng Kalabhavan as city’s first-ever MakerFest kicks off

Vadodara: From a paramotor with a parachute installed on it for people to glide in the air to a wheelchair that takes directions with the blink of an eye, innovations filled the grounds of M S University’s Faculty of Technology and Engineering (FTE) as the two-day long MakerFest kicked off here on Saturday.
MakerFest is Indian continuation of Maker Faire hosted across America, Europe, Africa and Japan. Since the last five years, it has been happening in Ahmedabad at various locations, including CEPT, NID and Ahmedabad University.

This year, it is for the first time that such a fest is being organized in the city by Yuvalay E-Lab, an initiative of Yuvalay Charitable Trust and FTE.

“My aim is to develop a ‘Made in India’ paramotor with the help of which soldiers, who have to constantly secure our borders, can safely fly in the air up to 500 feet and keep a vigil over 5km stretch,” said Ovesh Dodiya, a class nine pass out from Mangadh village of Idar taluka, who has spent years, experimenting with the paramotor model.

With the latest model that he has developed, he has achieved a height of 8,000 feet and glided continuously for two hours. “I want to prepare a cost-effective model which can be used by each and every person who wants to get a flying experience,” said Dodiya, who has spent Rs15 lakh from his pocket to develop the paramotor model and is now aiming to develop a two-seater model.

Guided by their professor Dhaval Tailor, a team of two students from ADIT in Anand district – Aman Sharma and Sohini Ghosh – showcased model of a wheelchair that is equipped with eye-blink control as well as gesture control.

“By wearing sunglasses, which have two IR sensors attached to them, a person using this wheelchair can take right, left or forward directions with movement of blinks. If the person blinks his or her right eye for one second, the wheelchair will move in the right direction. Similarly, if he or she blinks both the eyes at once, the wheelchair can go in forward directions and if both the eyes are blinked for two seconds, the wheelchair stops,” said Sharma.

The wheelchair decides the movement based on gestures made by head as well.

Another team of students demonstrated a drone model, which can throw grenades, smoke grenades on enemy or food and medicine packets towards people hit by disasters.

“There is a plug and play attachment to the drone which help deliver the items you need to deliver to the desired destination,” said Bhargav Suthar, who along with Smit Patel and Nishipal Singh have developed the model.