Chennai's Madras Christian College has recently introduced a high-tech duck to oversee the water quality of a lake situated on its expansive 300-acre campus in Tambaram. This IoT-equipped duck, controlled remotely, will navigate the lake to provide real-time data on various parameters such as water temperature, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, and pH. The lake, a vital water source on the campus, underwent desilting by Bisleri International Limited as part of their corporate social responsibility initiative. Additionally, they provided funding for the creation of a prototype for monitoring water quality. A team at MCC-MRF Innovation Park designed the duck with sensors and developed an app to gather and analyze the data. Principal Paul Wilson expressed that this initiative will enable them to make well-informed decisions to preserve the lake, ensuring the protection of the campus's ecology and wildlife.

Furthermore, the solar panels integrated into the duck can power it continuously, with the ability to operate for up to two days without sunlight and be manually charged if required, as highlighted by Kousik, the founder of the startup, KOLOZEN, responsible for building the duck. The startup has been collecting and transmitting data for the past two weeks.

Researchers are considering extending the use of similar ducks to monitor and collect water quality data from other bodies of water outside the campus for local governing bodies. This data could reveal insights into the behavior of water bodies during rain and seasonal changes, their environmental condition, disease prevalence, and enable the creation of a hydroinformatics platform utilizing this information. Prof. T Pradeep of the Department of Chemistry at IIT Madras emphasized the immense potential of this data.

The lush scrub jungle within the MCC campus is home to a variety of wildlife including spotted deer, porcupines, toddy cats, and bats.Meras with cameras in their eyes are used by the college to monitor the movements of wild animals on campus.