They live in the future, inhabiting a high-tech world with helpers who do the programming in the name of a noble goal – a clean environment, humanized cities, warmhearted relations among people. And as they set themselves no boundaries, even at a tender age they evolve into people capable of moulding the surrounding world.

Fifty schoolchildren presented, at a session organized by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences School Institute, scientific developments in various spheres. First prize went to the students from the robotics club in the Dimitar Talev Nevrokop vocational secondary school in Gotse Delchev with their project Smart Greenhouse. They also got the offer to build their invention in the botanical garden of the Agricultural University in Plovdiv.

“Our greenhouse combines several automated systems – for drip irrigation, for air temperature and humidity control, as well as for soil moisture and pH levels,” says secondary school student Maria Savova. “We also have additional lighting to assist photosynthesis. We have also created an interface - a menu of the spices included and the other kinds of plants. The interface can be used by each user to select what to grow – for example basil and lovage because their parameters are similar. Once chosen, the system automatically creates the best possible conditions for them, and, in practice, grows the various plants all by itself. In the end the only thing the user has to do is pick and eat them.”

The greenhouse can be kept on the balcony, or in the garden depending on its capacity. It can be used to grow different spices and vegetables at the same time – for instance cucumbers and tomatoes – as the system provides the conditions necessary for each one.

Legosweeper – this is the name the students from the Naiden Gerov secondary school in Lom have given to their “lego robot” for sweeping park alleys.

“It is a lego robot that gets rid of the trash and automates street cleaning,” says Alexander Vladimirov. “It has several components – it users sensors to get a sense of direction, a brush that can grasp different objects, as well as a shovel for scooping up things and a basket. The lego robot is capable of picking up absolutely anything in its way, making the environment in the city much nicer and safer. If the streets are cleaner there will be more people coming out to ride their bicycles, without worrying about any nails or pieces of glass in the street because the robot will have picked them up.”

The young inventors are also working on a robot which separates waste. Their work has already aroused the interest of companies in their home town.

During the summer, high-tech enthusiasts from all over the country took part in a robo-academy in Gotse Delchev. The idea for the academy belongs to engineer Atanas Savov, teacher at the Nevrokop vocational secondary school in the town, who inspires his students to breathe life into robotized systems. One of their projects – for using solar energy for heating – has already replaced the conventional central heating in the school robotics lab, another project rationalizes the amount of household waste accumulated.

“Our project aims to keep track, at any given moment, of each dumpster - whether it is full and needs to be emptied,” he says. “This will save money and the garbage trucks won’t have to make that journey for no reason early in the morning. There is another option, connected with waste collection tax which is now calculated on the basis of the tax assessment of the property. In other countries it depends on the amount of waste the user generates, and we have an idea of how to implement this mode of estimation. You can do that by touching the dumpster with your phone or card in which a given code has been entered which will open the container and the amount of waste for the day, month or year can be estimated.”

And while the inventors were presenting their vision of the future, applying the methods of a world organized according to logic, the young artists put on display, in the lobby of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences building, their artistic interpretation of people, buildings, streets, landscapes, born of their youthful imagination.

Photos: Diana Tsankova