A Teenager’s Innovation Born of Necessity
In 2005, Remya Jose, a 14-year-old student in Kerala’s Malappuram district, found herself managing household laundry by hand while preparing for her Class X board exams. Her mother had fallen ill and her father was undergoing cancer treatment, leaving Remya and her twin sister Soumya to handle the chores. The family had no washing machine, and the sisters washed clothes manually, a task that consumed time Remya needed for studying.
According to a report by The Times of India, Remya’s school commute already took nearly four hours daily, involving three bus changes. The combination of chores and travel left her exhausted and pressed for time. Rather than accept the situation, Remya decided to build a machine that could wash clothes without electricity.
Designing the Machine
Remya had observed how an electric washing machine worked and realized that, apart from the motor, it was essentially a perforated drum spinning in soapy water. She reasoned that a bicycle’s pedaling could provide the rotation needed. As reported by The Times of India, she later said, "Necessity is the mother of invention," describing how she studied the mechanism and set out to recreate it without electricity.
Remya drew her own design, which included an aluminium cabin, a wire-mesh cylinder for clothes, and a bicycle’s chain, sprockets, and pedals. Her father took the sketch to a nearby automobile workshop, where mechanics agreed to build the machine in their spare time. The materials cost about Rs 2,000, according to both The Economic Times and The Times of India.
The machine worked by soaking clothes in soapy water for about ten minutes, then pedaling for three to four minutes to scrub them. After rinsing, continued pedaling with the water drained helped remove moisture through centrifugal force, leaving clothes about 80% dry, as reported by the National Innovation Foundation of India and cited in The Times of India.
Power supply in Remya’s village was erratic, so she deliberately avoided an electrical design, as noted by The Economic Times.
Recognition and Patent
The National Innovation Foundation (NIF) documented the invention as the "Washing Cum Exercise Machine." NIF filed a patent on the design, and the patent was granted under number 207634. The invention was also listed among winners of NIF’s grassroots innovation awards.
The achievement brought Remya national recognition. According to The Times of India, she received a National Award presented by President APJ Abdul Kalam. The Economic Times reported on the invention in May 2005, describing Remya as a 14-year-old who had designed the washing-cum-exercising machine.