Pani puri without human touch? This vending machine is built just for that

Who doesn’t love eating pani puri? But often, the unhygienic conditions that it is served in becomes a deterrent for many. So what if it could be made with no human touch involved? A fully automated vending machine that pricks the puri, puts in the filling and the paani. That’s what a team of four students from Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal have built.

Electro Foodies, a team of four fourth year students -- Sahas Gembali, Neha Srivastava, Sunanda Somu, Karishma Agrawal -- from Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal created an automated pani puri vending machine, which automates the entire process, while the ingredients can still be made to suit your taste by the vendor.

The team built the prototype as part of the 2017 edition of Ink Makers, which was organised in parternship with T-Hub. The team won the competition.

The prototype even had a screen that can be used for advertisement, which can help generate additional revenues.

The idea, the students said, came from wanting to make one of India’s most loved snacks more hygienic while increasing sales for the vendor.

“We got a lot of feedback from various people over the last two days, who gave us a lot of different directions we can take our project in. We will now discuss all possibilities and see which is the best way forward for Electro Foodies,” said Sahas.

Ink Talks, known for holding talks by motivating people, has been organizing Ink Makers since 2015, which is a program that encourages undergraduate students and mentor them to turn their ideas into tangible products and concepts.

In its 2017 edition, which was organized in partnership with T-Hub, it organized make-a-thons across five universities where students across disciplines were required to build something from scratch, be it a machine, an app, a service, in 24 hours.

Thirty four teams from Manipal University, BITS Hyderabad, NIT Warangal, Lovely Professional University and NIT Surathkal participated in the finale, which was held on September 8 and 9 at T-Hub in Hyderabad.

Participants were teams across disciplines including engineering, dental and digital marketing, management students.

According to the Ink Makers website, “The idea here is to engage the students with a hands-on approach to create prototypes, modules, products and services to turn some of their innovative ideas and approaches in to reality. This is to create a cultural shift in the minds of the students and the educators and inculcate a culture of self-sufficiency, and entrepreneurship to foster innovation and disruptive thinking among students.”

The first runner up was Tech Knights, a team from NIT Warangal. This team created a game using Unity for the Android platform, which helps in cognitive learning of children.

The second runner up was a Dental student, Jaskirat Kaur, from Manipal University. She built ‘Brusrol’, an intra-oral teeth cleaner that cleans all teeth at the same time, for the physically and mentally challenged and geriatric patients.

Two consolation prizes were given to Techno Crafts, a team from LPU and Akshaya Patra from Manipal University that developed an all-in-one cooker, dryer, room and water heater built from scrap, which is powered by solar energy or by burning firewood.

The winning team will be awarded a cash prize of Rs 75,000, the first runner up gets Rs 50,000 and the second runner up gets Rs 30,000 from Ink. Both the winners of the consolation prize will also get Rs 20,000 each.

All the winning teams will also get the opportunity to showcase their product at T-Hubs second anniversary celebration, T-Day on November 10.

Additionally, they will also be mentored by Ink, based on their need, to be able to take their prototypes to the next level.

This article has been produced with inputs from T-Hub as a part of a partner program.