For Aparup Roy, a Class 11 student of Zoom International School in Durgapur, West Bengal, age is just a number. At the age of 17, Roy is working as a research assistant in Tesla’s food printing project.
They have also received participation certificates from three space agencies namely NASA, ESA, and JAXA for their EO Dashboard Hackathon to address COVID-19 challenges on Earth. He has written a research proposal titled ‘Development of cow dung using herbal material based mosquito repellent’, according to his LinkedIn profile.
They believe that the mosquito repellents available in the markets are full of chemicals and can cause many health problems. So, he decided to create an herbal version. In addition, he published two books – ‘Problems in General Chemistry’ and ‘Master ICSE Chemistry Semester’ – and three papers – ‘International Journal of Science and Research’, ‘International Journal of Scientific Research in Chemical Sciences’ and ‘Journal of Huh. Physics and Chemistry of Materials’ – in Chem.
All these were published when he was in 10th standard. In 2020, he secured All India Rank (AIR) 11 in ISRO Cybersecurity Competition and AIR 706 in Vedantu Master Scholarship Test (VSAT). Moving from Olympiad results and publication of research papers, how has Roy kept his love for chemistry alive in the tough times of the coronavirus lockdown?
He did several experiments at home, including dissolving salt in water to conduct electricity, for which he enlisted the help of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Roy told India Today, “When there was a lockdown, no one was allowed to go out, so I was forced to do all my experiments at home.”
He said that there are assignments which cannot be done at home and for this he has written to the head of the chemistry department at NIT Durgapur. Roy is now doing his research in a lab at NIT Durgapur.
Roy secured Rank 1 in the National Science Olympiad for IIT-JEE aspirants and AIR 482 in BYJU’s National Aptitude Test the following year. The young scientist from West Bengal scored 95 per cent in his class 10 board exams and is working hard to secure a higher rank in JEE and wants to join IIT Bombay in the coming years.
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