Kerala teens build robot to save palm-leaf manuscripts, head to Puerto Rico
Two innovative schoolgirls from Kerala have designed an impressive robotic system named Smriti 1.0 to digitize and safeguard fragile palm-leaf manuscripts. Their project clinched the top spot at the World Robot Olympiad India Nationals, paving the way for them to represent India at the upcoming international championship in Puerto Rico.
Two 14-year-old girls from Kerala have crafted a robotic system to clean, preserve and digitise delicate palm-leaf manuscripts. Their project has propelled them from a school robotics contest in Hyderabad to an international platform in Puerto Rico. Named Smriti 1.0, the system employs robotics, controlled drying and artificial intelligence to handle ancient palm leaves and transcribe their inscriptions into digital text.
Competing as Team UWR Synergy, the young innovators secured first place in the Future Innovators-Senior category at the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) India Nationals in Hyderabad from August 26 to 28. They are set to represent India at the WRO International Championship in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from December 8 to 10, 2026. The girls, Cathlin Marie Jeesan and Navika D. Nair, discovered the potential of the project while studying the works of Madhava of Sangamagrama, a renowned Kerala mathematician and astronomer.
They realised that these manuscripts, often fragile and containing archaic Malayalam scripts, pose significant challenges for modern readers and optical character recognition systems. The duo collaborated with the Manuscript Research and Presentation Centre in Irinjalakuda to understand the proper handling, cleaning, and drying of palm-leaf manuscripts.
Benson Thomas of Unique World Robotics, who mentors the students, emphasized that palm-leaf manuscripts hold more than just mundane information - they contain historical and mathematical records. Smriti 1.0 operates in stages, starting with a suction-based mechanism to carefully place a leaf onto a conveyor. Rollers then eliminate dust from the surface, after which lemongrass oil is applied to safeguard the leaf from microbial damage and pest infestation.
A robotic arm then transfers the leaf to a microclimate-controlled drying chamber, where temperature and humidity are strictly monitored. The manuscript then enters a scanning station where a camera captures the inscription and OCR technology extracts the writing, converting it into digital text. However, the current prototype can only process limited manuscript sizes, and the OCR system requires further refinement.
The students aim to enhance the system before participating in the 2026 WRO International Championship in Puerto Rico.
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