On vacation? Robo Nandi will take care of your house

Have robbery reports worried you, pushing your vacation plans on the back-burner? Now, you can have somebody in your house to keep an eye on things while you relax away from home. And that somebody is a robot.

Students from Children's Tech Centre in Thane have designed Robo Nandi, a nine-inch-high metal device that will take care of your house and belongings.

Centre director Purushottam Pachpande, who guided the students in the project, said, "It's their baby. All the effort and hard work has been done by the students over the past six months."

The device is the brainchild of Shardul Datar (DAV Public School), Harshal Veling (AK Joshi school), Sannel Patil (New English School), Vyom Vyas (Hiranandani Foundation School), Aamod Pant (Singhania School) and Shaunak Sawargaonkar (GD Somani school).

Explaining the device, Datar said, "A censor chip installed in the robot will sense any movement inside the house and intimate the owners on the phone number fed into it. The robot will call on the number stored, following which the owners will immediately come to know something's happening and they can then ask their neighbours or watchman to take a look at their flat and see if all's well."

The students have a prototype of Robo Nandi ready.

Explaining how the name for the robot was arrived at, Pachpande said, "Nandi, in mythology, is the bull and the doorman at Lord Shiva's temple who kept an eye on everything that happened around and also saved the Lord many times."

The students said they came up with the idea of making such a device after seeing how worried their parents would be about the house while away on vacation.

But why not install CCTVs in the house? "Installing CCTVs is a costly affair. Moreover, we will come to know about the incident after it has already happened, but smart Robo Nandi will intimate us immediately, based on which we can take action even if we are away. This robot can be installed at a much lesser cost and can be operated manually as well as by remote," said Patil.

Vyas said, "Robo Nandi can be attached either with the landline number or a mobile number. The best part of the device is that it works real time. And Robo Nandi does all of this without making a noise and without the intruder even coming to know that an alert has been sent."

The centre is planning to hold summer vacation workshops for the robot in Dadar, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and other places.