It was a proud moment for the City when two teenagers ranked among the top 15 finalists at Google Science Fair 2012.
Two Bangalore boys — Rohit Fenn and Raghavendra Ramachanderan— with their projects 'The Vacu-Flush' and 'Visible Light Deoxygenation' respectively, will fly to California to Google's headquarters to present their projects before a panel of judges and compete with the other finalists.
Apart from Rohit and Raghavendra, the other Indian who has qualified is Lucknow boy Sumit Singh for his project titled, 'Vertical Multi-Level Farm'.
Rohit's qualifying science project is a partial vacuum assisted flush that conserves over 50 per cent of the overall water used in a toilet to flush.
Talking about how he came up with this innovative idea, Rohit says, "I've seen a lot of people facing water problems and it seemed criminal on my part to come home and flush down over six litres of fresh water which these people could have used."
He says that initially, it was difficult for him to execute the idea. "Even though it is the simplest of all the projects, it took me six attempts to execute it to perfection."
Elaborating on his project Raghavendra, another finalist says that the project was born out of his interest in organic molecules.
It is time for these finalists to do a final check of their projects before flying to California.
They admit that they are nervous as they will be presenting their projects before experts in the field. "I will start the preparations this week. I'm really nervous about the project presentation. But I think that the concept of the project will click," says a confident Rohit, who wishes to become a scientist someday.
For Sumit Singh, who wishes to become doctor, this would be his first trip abroad. He says, "I'll prepare for the presentation by rehearsing before the mirror. I have never visited any foreign country before, so I want to prepare hard."
With all the hard work Rohit, Raghavendra and Sumit have put in for their projects, one can only wish these finalists good luck.