THRISSUR: Robots are now taking care of our handwritten works as well. No one can distinguish between the human and machine version. All you have to do is hand over the homework given by the teacher to the robot at home along with a pen and paper to write it down. The robot will do your homework in your handwriting. This robot is good enough for professional students to write their assignments and records.

PR Devadath from Cheruthuruthi Nedumpura Padinjarekkara and Siddharth Punathill from Kozhikode Kottooli are the brains behind this robot. Devadath is a final-year student of the Robotics Automation Department at Jyoti College of Engineering, Cheruthuruthi. Siddharth Punathil was a computer science student in the same college.

Devadath's experiments started with attempting to do his own homework and assignments. At first, the teachers could not tell the difference. The aim was to prepare projects quickly. They tried multiple methods including a 3D printer, but to little avail. Finally, success was achieved last November. They named it 'homework machine'.

How it works

1. The first step is to write capital and small letters from A to Z on a graphic tablet. If cursive writing is required, each letter should be written in that manner. This 'manuscript' is collected in the machine using the software. This is done only once. Later, the prepared lesson is edited on the computer, converted from text format to PDF format and fed to the machine.
2. The machine will be operated with a ballpoint pen attached to it. It will 'print' like it is handwritten. Almost like how a dot-matrix printer works. English is the only language that the machine can handle now. Handwriting software for other languages ​​including Malayalam is in the works. The hardware is made by PR Devadath and the software by Siddharth.

"With many students coming, the aim is to build the machine on a commercial basis. The second version is in the process of being released. That would be the model put for sales.

- Devadath

Construction Cost: around Rs.20,000

Time needed to write in FullScape: 3 min