Kerala girls build robot to preserve manuscripts, bag gold at robot olympiad

Two 14-year-old Kerala girls, Cathlin Marie Jeesan and Navika Nair, built Smriti 1.0, a robot that preserves and digitizes palm-leaf manuscripts. It won gold at the World Robot Olympiad India Nationals in Hyderabad. The robot uses suction to move manuscript leaves onto a conveyor without damage, removes dust, applies lemongrass oil, dries the leaves, and scans text using OCR technology.