A technology of converting used and waste plastics into useful substances using 3D printers by a Jamshedpur-based school won the top honour at the Jharkhand School Innovation Challenge (JH-SIC 2023) at IIT Indian School of Mines (ISM) in Dhanbad, Jharkhand.

The team of Loyola School in Jamshedpur comprising two students, Sagar Kumar and Sankalp Kumar, developed a technology to convert used and waste plastic into useful substances using 3D printers were declared champion during the weeklong competition which concluded on Saturday.

The team of Mahendramuni Shishu Vidya Mandir Madhupur, Deoghar comprising students Aman Kumar, Anshu Kumar and Roshan Kumar who had developed a firefighting drone were adjudged in the second position while the team from Hill Top School in Jamshedpur comprising Arush Roy, Darshil Tripathy and Ajitesh Kumar which developed a Khetrakshak or farmland protector to protect the farmlands against the locust swarm attack clinched the third position.

Team from DBMS English School, Jamshedpur comprising Samarth Pandey, J Monish and Siddharth Singh bagged the fourth position while SDSM School for Excellence also from Jamshedpur comprising Sourav Kumar Singh, Poonam Kumari, Shubham Shaw and Shubham Dutta which developed low cost, efficient communicator for people suffering from complete paralysis and a salvation stick were placed in fifth position.

Incidentally, the first-position team won a cash prize of Rs 50,000, while the second and third rank holders were provided cash prize of Rs 30,000 and Rs 20,000 respectively. Vice-chancellor of Jharkhand Technical University D.K. Singh handed over the prizes.

Singh lauded the effort of IIT (ISM) in organising, annually one of the biggest school-level innovation challenge for the three successive years.

He also exhorted the participants to use their scientific knowledge and technical acumen to solve the problems afflicting the community at the grassroots level.

Director IIT (ISM) J.K. Pattanayak, who presided over the function praised the innovative models developed by students of 10 selected schools which participated in the grand finale week.

Significantly, innovative ideas were invited by Naresh Vashisht Centre for Tinkering and Innovation (NVCTI), the innovation hub of IIT (ISM), from students between Class VIII and Class XII in June and over 250 ideas were received from around 150 schools.

After the three initial levels of screening altogether 10 ideas were selected for the grand finale week which began at IIT (ISM) on Monday.