A decade ago students would engage in either Arts and Crafts, enrol in children’s camps or go for extra classes during their vacations. There were limited options available to kindle their creativity and logical thinking, and make them ‘creators’ per se. But today, the scenario is completely different; the age of AI, Arduino and coding has dawned upon us and it is here to stay. Experts say that the jobs of the future will revolve around these areas. For parents who would like their children to be exposed to these fields, Guvi, the Chennai-based start-up incubated by IIT Madras and IIM Ahmedabad, is organising a two-day robotics workshop for children aged 10 years and above at IIT –M Research Park, Taramani, Chennai.
“We are primarily a coding tech company that provides coding lessons (Python, Java, etc) for young graduates and college students in five languages – Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Bengali and Arabic, in addition to English,” says Arun Prakash, Co-Founder and CTO, Guvi, adding, “It was after repeated requests from parents of teens that we decided to come up with a workshop for children aged 10 and above. This is the first time we are conducting a programme for school children.”
Through this workshop, children can get acquainted with logical thinking, programming and robotics basics. They will be provided with an Arduino board and have to code and build the robot using this. “Skilling is an essential component, but the highlight of the workshop is that the children will get the opportunity to build their robot in two days. They can even take each robot kit, which comes with sensors, home after the workshop so that they can assemble and re-assemble it again to promote self-learning,” he adds.
There are five robots the children can choose to build – Line follower robot, Obstacle avoider robot, Edge detector robot, Wall tracer robot and Light follower robot. “They will be mentored by industry professionals and experts. The registration fee for the two-day workshop (10 am to 5 pm) is Rs 3000 and students are expected to bring their laptop for the same,” Arun points out.