Crop cutter model by Vijayapura students wins national award

Dharwad: The indigenous crop cutter ‘Bheema Salaga’ designed by two students of Government High School, Naad KD village in Indi taluk of Vijayapura district, has won the national level ‘Inspire’ award.
Devendra Biradar and Karthik Narale, studying in Class 10 at the Government High School, has achieved this feat.
The department of science and technology (DST), Government of India, has instituted the Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (Inspire) scheme. This is one of the flagship programmes of the department. The Inspire Awards — MANAK (Million Minds Augmenting National Aspirations and Knowledge), being executed by DST with National Innovation Foundation – India (NIF), aims to motivate students in the age group of 10-15 years.
For the national award, 60 science models were selected of which five models from Karnataka had made it to the final round. The models prepared by students of Bidar, Davanagere, Ramnagar and Bengaluru rural districts are among the five from Karnatak which have won the award.
It was science teacher Shashikala Badiger along with her dedicated colleagues who encouraged the students to prepare the models. Bheema Salaga is a multi-task performing machinery. It can be used for tilling the land, removing weeds, sowing seeds, spraying of water and pesticide, harvesting, grass cutting and pruning the plants among other such works.
Shashikala told TOI that the students had registered for the competition in 2019-2020 but due to the lockdown, the project could be completed this year. “We were always thinking of doing something which could help solve the problems faced by the farmers. There are several modern farm machines being used in agriculture but they are all attached to a tractor which is an expensive proposition. We had thought of a multi-task machine and came up with ‘Bheema Salaga’. The two students were experts in collecting the spares required for the machine and assembling them. They have used broken desks, cycle chain, cycle wheels and other waste materials for the machine,” Shashikala said.
Additional commissioner of public instruction Siddalingayya Hiremath congratulated the teacher and students for winning the award and said their achievement is an inspiration to other students and teachers.
Attn desk sent pic
Caption: Science teacher Shashikala Badiger, students Devendra Biradar and Karhik Narale of Government High School, Naad K D village of India taluk in Vijayapura district with the ‘Bheema Salaga’ an innovative model that won the national ‘Inspire’ award.(TOI)