Benyas Wondwesen is a grade 12 student. He is among the talented youths embraced by the Information Network Security Administration’s (INSA) Cyber Talent Center. Benyas is proving his mettle at the center by coming up with different innovation-worthy works. Benyas has ignited different ideas of creative touches and he has tried to translate his innovational ideas in to products. Before he joined INSA Cyber Talent Center, Benyas had already two inventions. And currently he has produced a robot with multipurpose tasks.
Benya’s robot is designed to tackle the drudgery of household tasks and security surveillance service in the house. Benyas produced the robot to solve the problems he observes around his residency. Understanding the problems that households are experienced round his environs, he has decided to produce a robot that handles household tasks replacing human beings. The idea of creating a robot was stuck in his mind since he started understanding the toughness of handling household tasks and after he got the opportunity to translate his idea into practice. Then after Benyas started producing the product.
Benyas has designed the robot to provide security surveillance service in the house with the aim of managing security issues including buglers. Beynas said that he joined INSA’s Cyber Talent Center with a lot of innovational ideas, adding that the opportunity he received to join INSA’s Cyber Talent Center is helping him to strengthen his talents and to realize the innovational ideas into practice.
Benyas reiterated that before he produced his current robot, he had innovated two robots and the current one is his third robot, which he said is more developed than the previous ones. As to him, the production of current robot was started and developed within Cyber Talent Center after he joined INSA.
Benyas’ innovational talent has been putting down roots since his childhood and he was interested in producing gadgets from simple things he found in his surroundings. Benyas said that “since my childhood, my focus was producing and creating simple products from used materials and I showed them to people in my surrounding.”
As Benyas was passionate about innovation, he continued coming up with new gadgets in his school since his elementary school days. His innovational products were praised by his teachers and classmates in his school. Understanding his passion and his unique talent, his school administration and teachers appreciated him to continue honing his creative knacks and skills, Benyas told EPA.
Benyas said after he joined the Cyber Talent center, he got professional trainings and supports that helped him to develop his talent and to produce his ideal innovations in to real products. Using the opportunity he got from the Cyber Talent Center, Benyas was able to produce a multi-task robot. According to him, the robot was designed to provide household assistance service and security surveillance at the same time and the robot was produced from different materials including used products.
The young innovator noted that a security camera is installed at the front of the robot so that it can capture people’s picture. As the robot is capable of rotating, it can easily take a picture of its surroundings and provide security surveillance for the intended area. In addition, Benyas said, it can control and report every activity at home, especially when a robber encroaches on the compound of the house or if it senses any dangerous or irregular activity, the robot can report and send messages to the person who controls the system and sends message to security persons.
In addition, the robot has additional functions, according to its inventor. “The robot can communicate with people in Amharic language. It also repeats the voice heard from people and it responds to the questions asked,” Benyas added. “For example, if anyone provides the amharic greeting word ‘selam’, it reciprocates with ‘selam’,” he noted. Not only that, the robot can protect the security of selected products or things it is instructed to protect and discharges the duty efficiently.
“The robot can also protect the security of radio waves,” Benyas stated adding that a radio jammer has been installed on the robot. Hence, if the system of a radio stations faces a problem or if it is jammed and if it is broadcasting unnecessary information, the robot’s radio jammer system will immediately control the issue by downing the radio stations from the air.
As to Benyas, the robot can cut the unnecessary information being broadcasted by the jammed radio and broadcast information it wants or programmed by the owners of the station. In the meantime, the people listening to the radio will hear the information released by the robot. According to Benyas, the robot can foil any attack on radio stations and manage the information broadcasted at that time. This way, it can help to address the crisis during difficulty. Benyas further noted a voice spot is installed in the robot that helps the robot to record voices around its surroundings.
As to him, the robot can record speeches of people gathered in a conference hall and report it to the person who controls it. This system helps people to listen the recorded voice through voice spot using the robot. To fulfill its tasks, the robot can move from place to place by itself and a controlling mechanism is installed in the robot to manage its movements. The controlling system of the robot is managed by people who have the permission to do so.
“Anyone who wants to manage the activity of the robot must have the permission to control it,” Benyas noted adding that “to get the permission, anyone has to own the name password of the owner of the robot.” Unless the person owns the given name and password of the owner, it is impossible to command the robot. When a user finds the user’s name and the password and s/he commands the robot, it immediately starts its task instructed to do so.
“When the robot starts its task, the light bulbs installed around its eye emit green light. This is the sign that the robot is ready to discharge the task. It is a language that it communicates with its users,” the innovator reiterated.
Generally, as to Benyas, this robot has all types of radio jamming, voice spot and different types of security devices. Hence, to secure the usage of these sensitive security functions and to control the admittance into the system by unauthorized people, a software controlling system is installed within the robot.
In addition, in terms of hardware, the robot is locked by key and when the key opens, it has a system to report to the owner of the robot. The system is directly connected with the phone of the user and sends a voice message to the user.
For Benyas his innovational robot has its unique features compared to other robots. As to him, most robots are designed and produced to fulfill a single task, but his robot can fulfill multiple tasks at the same time. “By instructing the robot, it is possible to make it manage multiple tasks simultaneously,” he added. Compared to the imported robots, its price is also cheap. He noted the production cost of the robot to be 50 thousand birr.
After he completed the production of his robot at the talent center, he has invited people in the center to see and evaluate his product. As to him, viewers got surprised and appreciated his product. Then the product was professionally tested. After the test, the robot was verified for usage.
Benyas’ next plan is producing the robot for market consumption and is striving to develop his skills in the technology sector. He has the plan of producing robots that act fully like people and he is using the opportunity he got at Cyber Talent Center to develop his talent.
BY DARGIE KAHSAY
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 12 JANUARY 2024
