Robot built by 12-year-old Indian girl to save honey bees

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Honey bees are one of the most important pollinators we know of and a young Indian has made it her mission to save them by building a robot.

12-year-old Kavya Vignesh is the young scientists who has taken it unto herself to save honey bees from being killed by pest control teams. Kavya’s robot is called ‘Bee Saver Bot’, which once finished will ensure that bees are not killed, but safely transported to a place where they will not become a threat to humans and vice versa.

Kavya is a class 7 student of Delhi Public School in Vasant Kunj and is part of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious — India’s youngest ever team to qualify for the First Lego League – European Open championship in Aarhus, scheduled for May this year. Currently she is busy giving final touches to her robot that has the potential to save honey bees in residential areas — and for making a presentation of her bot at an international robotics event to be held in Denmark next month.

The ‘Bee Saver Bot’ is quite novel for it is able to scan the beehive, and relocate it by building an enclosure that safely transports the beehive to the nearest bee farm, without harming any humans or bees.

Kavya says that when people find beehives in their backyards or near their shed or somewhere near their homes, they call up pest control companies or local pest control people who build up a file underneath the beehive and kill almost all the bees. This is not a humane way of dealing with honey bees.

Kavya is optimistic that her solution can save millions of bees from getting hurt and actually relocate them back to bee farms from where they can be back on the fields where they contribute so much to our food chain.

In her efforts to participate in the event, Vignesh started crowdfunding through Fueladream — a Bengaluru-based platform that allows for pooling of funds for a cause.

“Although crowdfunding in India has been relatively a new concept, it is growing very quickly,” Ranganath Thota, Founder and CEO at Fueladream, told IANS. “Funding is the biggest challenge for students in India. Crowdfunding is a very democratic way to tell your stories and use social media and friends to raise money.”

Vignesh’s achievement also earned her praise from Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha.