While studying in class nineth, Utkalika missed out a debate competition because she got the invitation letter two days after the event. It happened so because the letter remained unattended for five days in the letterbox, inadvertently. Pained, she started thinking of a solution to avert such problems in future.She made an intelligent letterbox using discarded thermocole material. The letterbox had a light indication system.

The intelligent box consists of an electronic circuit, a receiving plate, which senses the dropped letter and triggers the circuit. Along with it, green and red status indication lights and a 3 Volt battery are attached to power the system.The "red light" flashes when the letterbox is empty and the "green light" flashes when the letter is dropped inside, actuating the plate and subsequently the whole electronic circuit. The simple yet effective visual cue by using lights to indicate letter status is an innovative and reliable solution. There are other boxes with audio alarm, which are triggered by the dropped letter. They have two types of arrangement, either the audio announcement will be made once or it will continue until the letter is retrieved. In the first case, the alarm may be missed if the person is not present or out of range as in multistoried buildings. In the second case, continuous alarm could be disturbing for others and has to be manually switched off by the person after going down to the post box installation. This light indicator gives a continuous clear indication, without disturbance.As an improvement, apart from light indication, whenever the letter is dropped, a short burst audio chime can be incorporated so that the person inside the house can hear the chime when a letter is dropped. In that sense, it would combine the best features of visual and audio indication system, suggests Utkalika. Earlier, NIF had awarded Shweta in second round for having conceived the idea of a letterbox with an alarm system. There are patents available in USA on letterbox with alarm system (http://www.wikipatents.com/4101877.html, USA patent number 4101877, 1978).