Pune: A Std IX student, Shreya Sandurkar, from Amanora School would become restless whenever she stepped out of her housing society. She would see bad roads and ponder over the problem to find a solution.
One day she suddenly found the answer: As everyone uses a smartphone, why not use it to improve the road condition? She started her research and created a mobile app, Road Visor. This app recently won her a special award at the National Science Fair, called IRIS (The Initiative for Research and Innovation in Science) held in New Delhi.
Shreya told Sakal Times, “The sensors in the smartphone were used to collect data of poor road conditions. Later, data would be collected from different locations. Overlaid data can be sent to Google Maps. I am planning to send this data to the Ministry of Roads and Highways so that they can fix such spots."
"Besides repairing roads, a person who is travelling on a road for the first time can use it to locate potholes, dangerous turns or any construction work, which could delay or affect the journey. The app primarily senses potholes, turns, speed bumps as we have seen how roads can affect our journey in a number of ways such as accidents, delays, fights, damage or traffic congestion,” she said.
"To avoid all this, we need to first download this app on our smartphone, then put it on, whenever we are travelling. This app then would automatically record data, which will get transferred to my data and then the average data can be sent to concerned authorities,” she explained.
Aspiring to become a mechatronics engineer (mechanical and electronics), Shreya said, “The app works best for cars as she designed it keeping a car or four-wheel drive in mind. In future, I would see how this app can be used for two-wheelers."
Shreya’s first prototype was presented to scientists from the NCL and the IISER at the Exciting Science Group research fair in Pune earlier this year. "Advice from Prof Bhas Bapat helped me at every step,” she said. Her father Sunand is a software engineer while her mother Sandhya is a housewife and her sister Sharmadha studies in Std IV.
IRIS is organised every year with support from the Department of Science and Technology, Intel Corporation and the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum. Among 70 different participants selected from across the country, Shreya was the only one from the city.
Fair at IISER
On Saturday (November 25), the Exciting Science Group is organising the Indian Science & Engineering Regional Fair (INSEF) at the Dining Hall complex at IISER-Pune. In all, 20 projects will be displayed, including Shreya’s. This fair is open for public viewing from 1.30 pm to 3 pm. For more information regarding the fair, one can send an email to register@excitingscience.org
