Teacher’s memory-boosting machine ‘good for students’

By Gamini Mahadura

A school teacher has devised a machine that she claims can help people boost their memory powers. The “memory development machine” is believed to be the first of its kind in Sri Lanka.

The inventor, Rasika Chandima Pathiranawasam (27), lives in Gothatuwa, Baddegama, and is attached to the staff of Dellawa Hiniduma MMV. She is a graduate of Sri Jayawardhanapura University. She has already secured patent rights for her invention.

The inventor (right) demonstrating the use of the machine

Ms. Pathiranawasam, who said she switched from science to mathematics at school because she was “not very good in science”, proceeded to university where she obtained her master’s degree in the subject.

Success in life, she believed, depended to a great extent on one’s memory retention powers, and it was this belief that motivated Ms. Pathiranawasam to think of inventing something that would help people to remember better. The raw materials for her invention are very basic: cardboard, plastic, matchsticks and buttons in various colours. She received a grant of Rs. 200,000 from the Commission for New Inventions to purchase a supply of plastic.

Ms. Pathiranawasam said her invention, which exercised the mind and the eyes to boost memory, would be useful to students, and even drug addicts suffering from memory lapses. She added that it could also be potentially useful to the intelligence unit of the Army.

The inventor hoped to launch her invention as a product for the open market, through the Commission for New inventions. The device has been examined by several academics and scientists, including Professor Godwin Kodituwakku, director of research and development at the National Education Institute, and K. Samarasinghe, head of the electronics unit at the University of Moratuwa.