“LIFEATHON – A Socio-Technical Hackathon”

Lifeathon - an event hosted by Christ College of Engineering, Irinjalakuda, Thrissur which provides a platform for students to solve problems faced by common people. Around 52 problems were given by people from all walks of life. Out of those,12 were shortlisted by a panel of experts comprising of academicians and industrialists. Students with innovative ideas are welcome to submit solutions to the given problem statements.

For more details visit https://techletics.io/event_details/event_detail_lifeathon.html

Problem statements

1. A device to find out the remaining amount of cooking gas in a LPG cylinder

It is a tedious task for home makers to find out the remaining amount of gas in a LPG cylinder. Our aim is to design a secure and non-invasive instrument that can provide notification about the remaining level of cooking gas inside the cylinder.

2. An acoustic solution for repelling birds from big trees.

Bird droppings on the roads and messing up of cars parked under the trees is a common thing in public places like railway stations, bus depots etc. Our requirement is to design a device which uses sound waves for repelling birds from trees which is not harmful to them.

3. A novel automated instrument for tapping rubber.

Due to complex nature of rubber tapping, skilled labour is required. High labour price is another added disadvantage. An automated rubber taping instrument for day to day collection needs to be designed and put in place.

4. An instrument to separate agro bags from treated soil

Plastic bags are always a threat to human beings even though they provide great flexibility. It gives us immense pleasure to watch samplings arranged in plastic agro bags at nurseries. But have you ever thought of separating these plastic bags from treated soil, once they become useless? Try to come up with a device that can efficiently solve this problem.

5. Communication enabled sanitary napkins for paralysed/ autism lady patients

Menstrual hygiene is a major problem for all women alike but becomes more acute for women having conditions like paralysis, autism, stunted mental growth, etc.Wearing pads for prolonged intervals of time, causes skin rashes and vaginal infections. Sanitary napkins that can provide alerts to the caretakers, when it is soiled, needs to be developed.

6. Children tracking wristband for preschools, nurseries, kindergartens

Human trafficking is the third largest organised crime in India. Child missing cases are quite often now a days and causing headache to the police officials. So a wrist band for tracking these children will be very useful for day cares, nurseries, preschools, and kindergartens etc. This wrist band with tracking device could properly locate the missing child and help police to rescue them.

7. Croftbot for automatic intelligence system for agriculture

An intelligent assistant for fruitful cultivation is a need of farming community. Design a bot that can plough, water, and plant saplings on barren lands. The Croftbot should be able to measure the pH, NPK, moisture content etc in order to provide a sundry of nutrients to make the land arable.

8. Internal crack detection system for buildings

Attention!!! Over a period of time even the most structurally sound homes may experience cracks in the walls. These cracks can be a sign of serious issue and they endanger the stability of the building. Unlike the common practices, we need an improvised technique to find the cracks non-destructively.

9. Pneumatic device for plucking coconuts

Coconut being one of the major agricultural crops in southern part of India, a better study and development of equipments for the ease of harvesting is required. All the existing systems for the above mentioned purpose requires manpower for proper execution. This is a major drawback of these systems which limits its usage. Through Lifeathon, we are looking forward for a cost effective counterpart which works with the pneumatic lift system.

10. A device to segregate jackfruit flesh from jackfruits

Jackfruit –The official fruit of Kerala is known for its taste and health benefits. But its rinds and latex makes it troublesome for the people to cut the fruit and extract its bulbs. Although we have an existing jackfruit cutting machine, its efficiency is questionable with variation in size and shape of jackfruit. So we need a modified jackfruit cutting machine to overcome the drawback.

11. Non-invasive system for monitoring both Diabetes and blood pressure

Nowadays, it’s very hard to meet a person without diabetics or blood pressure. It has become a vital requirement to have a portable, handy non-invasive instrument that can accurately measure both diabetics and blood pressure.

12. A simple paddy rice parboiler for homemakers.

Traditional method of parboiling by farmers involves soaking, steaming, drying and milling. But as it is a time consuming and highly laborious process, common man rather prefer rice readily available. Design a compact temperature based paddy rice parboiler for homemaker.

Rewards

• Funding up-to 5 lakhs for feasible ideas.
• Selected teams can avail the services provided by Maker Village to create their prototypes.

NB: The students / teams who gets shortlisted for these challenge gets a direct entry to the Idea Fest finals and stand a chance to win the grant up-to 7 lakhs depending on the stage of their project / idea development. The number of teams per challenge which gets selected will be decided during the final stage of the event