Learning at full STEAM!

I grew up in a home where my mom fixed the broken appliances.

My mother says she learnt from her brothers who were engineers.

As for me, I never had the aptitude for it. And hence, learning Robotics was not even a distant goal that I saw for myself.

So when I decided to volunteer as the St. Mary’s school Robotics (SMRC) team’s trainee mentor for the prestigious First Tech international competition, I expected to be thrown into deep waters and then, learn how to swim.

The FIRST Tech Challenge is run at various levels to promote STEAM (Science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) amongst school students. Teams design, build, and code robots to compete in an alliance format against other international teams. Robots are built from a reusable platform, powered by Android technology, and can be coded using a variety of levels of Java-based programming.

For me, the learning has been tough. I had to start from the basics - what mechanical parts are used in Robotic units, how to connect the software to the hardware, and the software used to design.

Brainstorming ideas, building the design on OnShape, ordering parts from the USA, 3D printing some parts locally, and resorting to the Indian “jugaad”- came far more easily to the bright students of SMRC. The teams parallely need to perform multiple outreach programs to local schools, corporates and housing complexes to maximise the spread of STEAM. Three teams are participating from the school this year- SMTech, LunaTech and Electrohephathenix (did your jaw break saying it aloud?) :-D

As we gear up for the international competition being hosted at Goa, this year, here is a shout out to the incredible mentors, Dev Singh Matharu Benny Mathew and Amit Chopra who have been mentoring not just the students, but quietly mentoring me too. The unending hard work put in by the school’s teachers, Sangita Kulkarni, Asha Bakal and others, is inspiring. All of them have been doing this for years now.

So, while I learn to float in the Robotic waters, I hope I am able to catch up with my 75 year old mother who still fixes the plumbing. STEAM is building one generation at a time!