It’s was a 4 day holiday for me and I left hostel for the week to Kerala to get some break from college as we just had finished our internal exams. It was a night’s travel from Coimbatore but I finally reached a beautiful place in Kerala named Munnar along with my parents. I was staying in a resort named Palm Tree Leaf which is located in Anachal. During my stay there I was quite obliged to meet the owner of the resort and tell him about the things I was up to. So relating to some of my past projects and my current IoT add on course classes he told me about the water supply pump which was quite far from the resort and every time they needed to fill up the resort tank they had to send someone about 3 km to turn on that pump.

Being an engineer and looking for problems to solve as inspired by my faculty Mr. Alex sir, I told them that I would provide them with an easy solution to this problem. I then discussed with Alex Sir and stated in front of him the problem and seeking a solution. He gave me ideas on GSM as well as IoT based solutions. After my second visit, I kind of identified that IoT based solution will not work as it an interior region and conveyed the resort personnel about a GSM controller which could turn on and turn off their pump with just an SMS. They were quite impressed with the idea and asked me to build it.

I went to the water pump sight and took some pictures of the control box they had their and after reading the specifications of the pump I was quite surprised because I had never worked on something that was so power hungry. The pump almost consumed three times the power consumed by a normal AC. But that wasn’t a hindrance because that just meant expensive components and a little more complexity in my circuit. After taking proper note of everything there. I left back for Coimbatore and started to develop the prototype along with Alex sir.

After purchasing components things were still not sorted because some of the components couldn’t be interfaced the usual way because this wasn’t just a POC or a prototype but it had to be an actual product. That is the time I was attending an IoT workshop conducted by Mr. Alex Timothy sir. I used to ask him doubts calling him up at odd times of the day and also after study hours till late night, but he still used to be very friendly and help me with the technical stuff. So finally, I had moved up from the block diagram phase to the actual work phase. Even after the knowing what I had to do the building was not an easy task. Staying up late at night in the hostels along with Alex sir and after almost 2 days the circuit was almost complete it was time for the first run. I turned it on and well no luck it didn’t work. And I immediately called sir at night and he asked me to come to him with the components after meeting him I realized that one of the GSM modules I bought was a older one and may not work with my product. Now the situation was a bit worse because the next morning I had to leave for Munnar to deliver the product.

Now I came back to the room somewhat worried that I will be late. But exactly the same time Alex Sir called me up again at around 2:30 am and he told me that he had found a unique solution to the problem with a similar component. Within 1-2 hours of getting it the product was finally complete and the next morning I immediately left for the installation. And as soon as I reached there after few minutes of installation the product was up running and they are happy since. While doing the project somethings didn’t work even after multiple tries and sometime it used to get frustrating but not giving up was what I did and finally when it was done and working, the happiness of it is worth all the effort.

I really thank Mr. Alex Timothy sir for encouraging me to identify problems nearby and as an Engineer provide solutions to solve the same. Now I am glad that I not only identified the problem but also solved it with high class technical guidance from Alex sir. Last but not the least; I extend my thanks to the Lord Almighty for giving me wisdom and guiding my path towards this achievement.