So indomitable these adolescents are!
Yes, they made it. After long 20 hours of endeavor, they invented the Smart Road Safety Beast. This is an AI based ‘Vehicle Safety Guard and application’ comprising of seven devices which proved simply a unique one in the whole world. With that innovation, the young inventors are going to participate the 'NASA Conrad Challenge'. After crossing the three step hurdles, the 'Not a Boring Team' has reached the peak of this big victory. Now, they are waiting for hoisting the red & green flag.
Big victory in the hands of the little ones
The team members of the 'Not a Boring Team' are between 13-18. Despite their young age, they were quite concerned about the frequent road accidents on their way to schools. These five teenagers allied together to invent something new to save lives in road accidents. Not from the capital city, rather they hailed from the remote northern part of the country.
The concept of the project came from the head of Md. Twa Seen Elahi, an SSC candidate of Chapainawabganj Harimohan Government High School and his teammates. His teammates to catch the are Mahdi Bin Ferdous of Natore Government Boys’ School; Md. Noor Ahmad of Rajshahi Collegiate School; Nadeem Shahriar Apurbo of Naogaon Najipur Government Model High School; and Narsingdi's son, Md Sanjim Hossain, an A’ level student of Loreto School in Dhanmondi. Mehdi Hasan, a graduate student of DUET's Mechanical Engineering Department associated the team in their endeavor.
Bangladesh in NASA Conrad Challenge
Innovative Business Challenge was the theme of the 'NASA Conrad Challenge 2023-24'. In the competition, contestants have to present business models of sustainable innovative projects in four categories: aerospace, cyber security technology, energy and environment, and health and nutrition. Young innovators from different parts of the world participated in this challenge which lasted for four rounds. There were three steps to go through in virtual competition. After that, the tickets will be available at Johnson Space in Houston, Texas, USA. Those who make it to the Niagara finals will each receive $80,000 scholarships to study at Menlo College, $60,000 at Lewis & Clark College, and $60,000 to study at Clarkston University. Runners-up team members will get $500,000 cash prize. In this year's Niagara Challenge (NASA Conrad Challenge 2023-24), the 'Not a Boring Team’ of Bangladesh has won the 10th place surpassing 3400 competitors from around 50 countries. Earlier in 2015, a team reached the final stage of this competition for the first time. After nine years, the team of Bangladesh has again passed the third stage. The team members are currently standing as alternative finalists. Now they are waiting to climb into the cockpit of NASA's historic Johnson Space Center and Space Center Houston from June 23 to 26.
These teenagers used to participate in Olympiads and robotics competitions held in Bangladesh at different times. Md Twa Seen Elahi, SSC candidate of Harimohan Government High School of Chapainawabganj district formed a team on messenger in September last year. After talking to the members, the 'Not a Boring Team' applied for the 'NASA Conrad Challenge' in November.
Even if you know how the name of the team came to be Not a Boring Team, the reader will stop a while. Among the team members, Twa Seen and Mahdi worked more than 19 consecutive hours. The workload was so high that their team members did not sleep for several nights. Skipper Tasin Elahi has slept just 10 hours in the last 72 hours on the submission date line. The rest of the time was just for work. Mahadi, Nadeem, Sanjeeb all started working together. Noor designed websites and developed software. Mahdi contacted various senior peers and sought cooperation from them. Nadeem looked at hardware and Sanjeeb read various research papers.
Numerous obstacles kept coming up. But they did not give up. Their SSC exams are scheduled after 2 months. All three including the team leader are current SSC candidates. They needed to study regularly for participating in the competition despite the Board Exams. Still, they could manage to submit the project finally maintaining the deadline. The day before the math exam, the result published; he couldn’t believe his eyes. 'After the result came, I could not believe my eyes that we’ve beaten everyone in the world and made the name of Bangladesh shine'.
Jointly the team started to plan to conquer the NASA. They submitted the project on January 13 this year. Once the project plan was accepted, the work on preparing the environment human disaster and energy conservation mission- 'Smart Road Safety Beast' devices and applications begins. Along with the creation of business models. During this time, they took the help of a student of DUET. They also passed the third stage by showing the prototype of the device. But the path was not so smooth. Their preparation started from September 2023. Everyone registered their names giving everything in details. Then, it was the ‘Lean Canvas round’. Winning this round was unbelievable. Through this, they started dreaming of becoming a global finalist. Work continued. The failures kept coming. Components worth around 15 thousand taka were burnt. Instantly, they had to create animations without hardware.
Tasin, the team leader of 'Not a Boring Team', who is running tirelessly from the threshold of realizing the big dream of bringing Bangladesh to the world in the final stage, said that we will be among the youngest teams among those who survived in the end of the competition. Perhaps we got the least opportunities while working. The developed world has more opportunities. Their technology, their materials, their opportunities are much more developed than ours. But we have worked with what we had and by the grace of Allah, Alhamdulillah a good result has come.
Smart road safety beast to save life and energy
The 'Smart Road Safety Beast' is made up of seven components. Specially designed motherboards, vibrators, reader sensors, tachometers, cameras and accident detectors will be installed in various parts of the vehicle. And the driver will face the connected display of each component. The motherboard and display are about 10 inches square and slightly thick. The remaining devices are 7-8 cm long and 5-6 cm thick. The camera works like a web camera. And the display mounted on the dash board of the car is connected to the voice sensor which will warn the driver from time to time if necessary. AI will also appear as robots. That is, even if you drive yourself, you will get the benefits of a driverless car in smart road safety beast gadget gear. By downloading its app on the mobile phone, the car owner can monitor the car and the driver from anywhere. Its AI bot will create awareness by analyzing the careless behavior of the driver and detect mistakes. Small innovators said that the entire gear would initially cost between 30-35 thousand taka. According to them, at this cost, the benefits of autonomous cars will be available in existing cars. Deaths in road accidents can be prevented.
The inventive team leader said with such a dream, “We all worked together day and night. None of the team knew much about business. So, it took time for us to learn about commerce. After that advice and support was taken from various senior peers. Now we are dreaming, one day we will make our own technology satellite. I will launch the satellite from my own country using indigenous technology. I will conquer the moon and Mars”.
Seeing the indomitable tenacity of the teenagers, people may start reciting the lines from our National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam: “I’ll go down the earth, again will cross the orbits; I’ll see the whole universe right on my Palm top”.
