Arnav Sinha, 18 Under 18 Chapter II Winner, is a maestro of making ordinary things extraordinary

Innovation is the ability to view change as an opportunity rather than a disruptor. Arnav Sinha, a class 10 student at Motilal Nehru Public School, identifies himself as an innovator.

Describing how and why innovation intrigued him, Arnav said, ‘When I was a small kid, I liked to play with radio-controlled cars a lot and I broke a lot of them too. One day when I asked my dad to buy me a new RC Car as the one he brought me just the day before was broken, he scolded me lightly. Then he asked me to get the broken one and he started to see what the problem with it was by dismantling the car. While he tried to repair the toy, I got very fascinated with all those circuits, wires, and electronics. My father being engineer-minded tried to repair everything at home by himself and asked me to assist him by holding the torch for him. So at a very young age, I was exposed to the internals of most of the appliances and gadgets at my home and after that whenever I got a new toy, I would open them to see what was inside them and how it worked, after playing with them for a day or two.

At first, I just dismantled the toys and took out the components separately, and stored them in a box, but after some time I started trying to assemble them again, and then I got to know how much of a difficult task was it to build something. But I didn’t lose hope, I tried again and again and after some time I started getting successful in building them again. After that, I tried making something useful out of the components I had collected from all my previous toys. Some of my very first projects were an LED Torch, an RC Ambulance, a Spider-Man Web Shooter, a Bubble Making Machine, a Vacuum Cleaner, and a model Escalator. I made all these projects by just using waste materials.’

In class 3, he joined the Science Club in his school to make newer & better projects. Since he didn’t always have all the components required for a project, Arnav utilised waste materials from his house in an exceptionally creative way. This soon led to him developing ideas for his own innovations and over the years he started creating whatever came to his mind.

The support & appreciation from family, teachers & friends has been highly encouraging, allowing Arnav to develop his interest and keep creating new things.

The innovation that got him wide recognition and appreciation is a sensor-based sanitiser dispenser to help prevent the spread of Covid-19. The dispenser is touch-free and has a built-in timer to ensure that the person using the sanitiser does so properly and for the required amount of time.

‘It was during the Covid-19 lockdown that I thought of making a sanitizer dispenser that would be touchless to aid in the fight against covid as it spread mainly through touch. Since all the shops were closed due to the lockdown, I went around my house collecting broken/discarded stuff that looked useful for the project. While looking through a box in which I stored and collected all the scavenged electronics from old devices at my home I happened to stumble upon a linear actuator(motor). And after tinkering with the actuator I designed a mechanism to use it properly and then I went on to make the machine using all sorts of waste materials available at my house. After making the prototype, which used an electronic foot switch to dispense the sanitizer, I recorded a video of it and sent it to my school’s ATL (Atal Tinkering Lab) Whatsapp Group, and all my teachers appreciated me.

My dad who works in HIGHCO Eng. Pvt. Ltd. Adityapur, forwarded my video to his company’s WhatsApp group and everyone liked it, especially his company’s MD (Mr. Tapas Sahu), then he called me for a meeting and asked me to bring my sanitizer machine with me. I went there and showcased my machine to everyone there and then he offered to buy a few of the machines for use in his company as slowly the lockdown restrictions were being removed and the industries started operating again. But he said that he wanted a sensor-based machine so then I started doing the research and experiments on my machine and after a lot of R&D for weeks I presented to him my ‘Fully Automatic Sanitizer Dispenser Machine’. He liked it and gave me an order for ten such machines. I received orders from a few of my relatives too. Then I manufactured them and delivered them to everyone. It was a great experience as I learned how things worked in real life.’

Arnav won first place in the state-level IRC School League Robotics Competition in 2018 and went on to participate in the Nationals in Delhi. He has also won various other accolades including a sponsored field trip to ISRO Ahmedabad, district-level INSPIRE Awards, 'Innovate for Change-2022' Inter-School Competition organised by his school, among others. Besides innovation, Arnav has also won at various Maths fests, Computer quizzes, English storytelling competitions & Hindi elocutions.

Arnav plans to prepare for JEE and aspires to go to an IIT and would keep tinkering with electronics to innovate new things. He intends to work on his unique, creative ideas while at college, have them patented under his name and convert the inventions/projects into products. He is determined that he would apply his love of creativity to ideas and activities that develop the nation.

It is hard to put this feeling into words. Nevertheless, I am very glad to win this award, represent my school, and be recognized on such a big stage. It was all really exciting and motivational for me, I got to know so many wonderful people who were just like me, and I talked with them and learned many new things from them. Knowing that there are so many great talents out there really motivated me a lot to do my best in my field so that I can stay at par with them, said Arnav after winning the 18 under 18 Award.