In 2018, Swati, Shourya and Manya Garg watched in absolute horror as flash floods in India washed away families, homes and property. For them, it was devastating to see people lose everything they had. Deeply affected by the situation, they decided to form a team and work on flood-resistant homes, that could also work as rescue homes in times of crisis: Maharaja Agrasen Model School’s Atal Tinkering Lab.

Think about how plastic containers or bottles float in water. So, using the principle of buoyancy, the team wanted to explore the possibility of several plastic bottles fixed together, acting as air cells, and lifting the entire weight of a house.

“We used 48-50 empty soft drink plastic bottles to lift the model house in our prototype, weighing 9.5 kgs using the principle of buoyancy during floods. And it was successful. Similarly, we inferred that big-sized bottles as per the weight of homes in the bank areas could be used to make life-size flood-resistant homes,” said the team from Maharaja Agrasen Model School Atal Tinkering Lab.

The prototype has a strong metalic base with a layer of aluminium frame and meshes, which hold the bottles in place.

The prototype structure moves vertically with the help of coaxial pipes, which are fitted in the steel pillars fixed to the ground. This setup ensures that the structure is intact and is not dislocated in an event of a flood or calamity.

“We have also installed a turbine to harness the energy of the flowing water into electricity and are now installing solar panels in the model to make it self-sufficient for rescue purposes too,” they added.