Environment friendly inventions competition:

Invention bags second prize at US contest

Chitraratne Kaluarachchi - Hidogama group correspondent

R M D C Ratnayake, a student of the Polonnaruwa Camp Navodya school has won the second prize (two gold medals) at an Environment Friendly Inventions Competition held in Texas, USA for a cooker invented by him which can be used as a water heater. A total of 1,600 competitors representing 56 countries participated at this competition.

Ratnayake said he spent only Rs 190 for his invention by using silicon, bottle pieces, salt and sand as raw material.

A pipe runs through the cooker and water is filled from one end and hot water can be obtained from a tap fixed to the other end. A coil fixed to the cooker gets heated 10 minutes after lighting it and boils water upto 100 centigrades. The water is kept at the same warmth for 12 hours after switching off the cooker.

Ratnayake said another feature of the cooker is that it does not gather any soot. He said his invention will be handy for people in the North Central Province specially Polonnaruwa, who are advised to boil water before drinking it to ward off kidney ailments. Ratnayake is the only son of Ananda Sarath Kumara Ratnayake and T M Ranjini.

He has two other sisters in their family.