Students win Viksit Bharat Buildathon for bomb-diffusing robot, smart glasses

A spider-shaped bomb-diffusing robot developed by students in Assam, affordable bone-conduction smart glasses designed by a Uttar Pradesh team and an urban air-purification concept from Gujarat were among the 10 national-level winners of the Viksit Bharat Buildathon 2025, which entered the Guinness World Records as the “Largest Innovation Solution Competition” with 287,967 project submissions across both idea and prototype tracks.

The 10 winning teams received a combined cash prize of ₹17.50 lakh, while the nationwide initiative had an award pool of more than ₹1 crore across district, state and national levels.

The national awards comprised five winners in the prototype track, each receiving ₹2.5 lakh for their working models, and five in the idea track, each awarded ₹1 lakh to encourage further development of their concepts.

The idea track recognises students who present innovative concepts to address real-world problems, while the prototype track rewards teams that develop functional working models of their proposed solutions.

Union minister of state (MoS) for education Jayant Chaudhary felicitated the winning teams in New Delhi on Wednesday at an event in New Delhi and received the Guinness World Records certification for the initiative which Union education ministry hailed as “a historic milestone for school education and grassroots innovation in India”

Organised by the department of school education and literacy under the Union education ministry, in collaboration with NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the programme launched in September 2025 aims to encourage school students to identify real-world problems and develop solutions independently.

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The winning projects addressed challenges spanning public safety, renewable energy, urban pollution, environmental sustainability and livelihoods.

A three-tier assessment process at the district, state and national levels, conducted by multidisciplinary expert panels, selected 10 national awardees, 100 state awardees and 1,000 district awardees.

The national winners included students from Assam, Delhi, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.

The Assam team from PM SHRI Kendriya Vidyalaya, Tinsukia, won for “Vadiffuse”, a spider-shaped robot designed to diffuse bombs. Students from Modern Public School, Shalimar Bagh, Delhi, were recognised for their project on renewable energy, while a team from PM SHRI Kendriya Vidyalaya No. 1, Surat, Gujarat, developed the “Urban Breathing Pole”.

Students from Green Valley Educational Institute, Srinagar, won for “Guardian Bridge”. A team from De Nobili School, Dhanbad, Jharkhand, was recognised for a project exploring methane gas in the coal-mining region, titled “Dhanbad: The Burning Treasure and the Silent Methane Gas”.

Other winners included “EcoSync” from PM SHRI Kendriya Vidyalaya, Adoor, Kerala; “WINDMINER”, an omnidirectional windmill, from Carmel Convent Senior Secondary School, Neemuch, Madhya Pradesh; and a tasar cocoon counting and quality-checking machine with segregation from DAV Public School, Unit-VIII, Odisha. An “Instant Thermo Flask” developed by students of Pathippaga Chemmal K Ganapathy Government Higher Secondary School, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, and “EchoLens”, affordable bone-conduction smart glasses developed by students of Step by Step School, Rohillapur, Gautam Budh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, were among the top 10.