Mangalore Boy Uses Kites To Make Electricity, Winning Prestigious Award

Royston Vijay Castellino, at the age of 22, obtained the honorable Gandhian Young Technological Innovation Award for conquering wind energy from the sky using kites.

The idea came to this student from Srinivas Institute of Technology when he was on the beach,  spotting a man flying a kite. Castellion then examined the influence of wind power systems, from which he discovered that there were limitations in the production of electricity.

Castellion made kites that work based on the principle of converting the energy from their pulling force into rotational motion. During his experiment with kites, the 22-year-old found out that when a kite is rotated to form an infinity symbol in the sky, it will generate the most power. Additionally, a kite with four lines can create more power than that with two lines. Therefore, as reported by TOI, Castellion began building a strong base using a four-line kite monitoring system.

The young man initially bought a four-line kite from China. He later found bicycle parts, sprockets, and crank wheels to use as materials. He used permanent magnets to modify a ceiling fan and used threads to wound the bicycle wheel’s rims.

To monitor the kite, Castellion used a motor, a receiver circuit, and a wireless transmitter. To increase the speed, he made use of a chain drive. According to his explanation, a larger kite can bring about better outputs and the whole process can be automated by installing sensors on the kite to identify its position and send data back to the base station.

Installing two kites can directly transfer the energy to the utility grid. The project can also gain mobility if the base station is set up on a vehicle including a generator and control system.

With this project, Castellino wants to make wind power generation cheaper, more efficient and more useful in producing electricity for rural residents. The project was patented and names “Winds of Charge.”