Students develop ‘robot’ that picks metal from waste

SALALAH, MARCH 18 - Segregating metals from all sorts of trash can become easy by adopting a technology developed by the two prospective engineers, who are still pursuing their course at the College of Engineering in Dhofar University. They have developed a ‘scarp collecting robot’ which, according to them, “can go a long way in segregating metal objects from mixed sort of trash and pave the way for waste management and its subsequent recycling.” Atsaloom al Amri and Azza Eid bait Ghawith, students of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, have developed prototype of the electronic robot, which is fitted with sensors and motors to serve the purpose.

“It took us months to conceptualise and acctualise it. The prototype robot is fitted with battery, sensors and motor and there is involvement of many electrical techniques. As a prototype we tested it with nails and the result was 100 per cent. While moving on the mixed items of papers, plastic materials, the robot picked up all the metals and kept them in a designated container,” said Atsaloom al Amri.

Azza Eid Ghawith is an ambitious student who wants to be “the first woman from Dhofar to achieve something big.” Explaining about the robot, she said the sensor in it senses metal and moves automatically towards it. She is confident that the actual robot could be successful in solving the big issue of waste management to some extent. “The waste created by humans during the course of their day-to-day activity is nothing but a form of some resource. They can be segregated based on their property and re-used. We tried to do it with metals and were successful,” she said.

Their supervisor, Dr Prajoona Valsalan, appreciated the efforts put in by them. “I am delighted that the students could handle the project efficiently. I supervised their work but entire work was done by them. They nicely did procurement, assemblage and implementation of their final year project.”

Commenting on the time consumed by the project, Dr Prajoona said, “They managed it in two semesters. One semester they utilised for understanding the concept, preparing reports and arranging components. Second semester they started working on actualizing the project, and I am happy they showed their keenness to learn and complete the project.”