Two 14-year-old girls from Kerala built a robot to save ancient palm-leaf manuscripts. Their invention is now headed for a global presentation

Ancient palm-leaf manuscripts can hold centuries of knowledge, but preserving them is a race against time. In Kerala, two 14-year-old students are trying to give these fragile records a technological lifeline by building a robot that can clean, preserve and digitise them. Cathlin Marie Jeesan of Holy Grace Academy in Mala, Thrissur, and Navika D. Nair of Naipunnya Public School in Kochi developed Smriti 1.0, short for Smart Manuscript Restoration through Intelligent Technology for Inscriptions. The project grew from their interest in Kerala mathematician and astronomer Madhava of Sangamagrama, whose work was recorded on palm leaves. The students realised that preserving such manuscripts involved more than simply scanning them, particularly when the leaves are fragile and written in older scripts.

What can Smriti 1.0 actually do?

Their mentor Benson Thomas told The Week: “It is not just horoscopes that are being written on palm leaves.” He pointed to the mathematical knowledge associated with Madhava as an example of why these records matter. The prototype uses a suction-based mechanism to move palm leaves onto a conveyor, where rollers remove dust. It can then apply lemongrass oil before transferring the manuscript into a controlled drying chamber. Once the preservation process is complete, a camera captures the inscriptions and OCR technology attempts to convert the writing into digital text. The students are also working on improving the system's ability to recognise older forms of Malayalam script.

The challenge is significant. The National previously reported that millions of palm-leaf manuscripts remain across India, with many exposed to deterioration from moisture, insects and mould. It quoted manuscript preservation expert PR Mukund saying, “The main problem in these manuscripts is the lipi, or script,” because many older scripts are no longer widely understood.

From a Kerala classroom to an international robotics competition

Smriti 1.0 won first place in the Future Innovators – Senior category at the World Robot Olympiad India Nationals in Hyderabad, held from August 26 to 28. The victory has earned Cathlin and Navika a chance to represent India at the international competition in Puerto Rico in December. Their next challenge is to make the prototype handle manuscripts of different sizes while improving OCR accuracy and the drying system.

Why this project matters

Kerala already has a major institutional effort dedicated to its manuscript heritage. The Palm Leaf Manuscript Museum in Thiruvananthapuram houses rare records covering centuries of the state's social, political and cultural history. The National reported that the museum's team had to sort through millions of palm leaves while restoring damaged material. Smriti 1.0 therefore represents something bigger than a school robotics project. Two teenagers are attempting to connect Kerala's centuries-old written heritage with robotics and AI turning technology built for the future towards knowledge from the past.