Kerala launches 9000 robotic labs for 1.2 million school students

Robotic labs are being set up by the Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE), the EdTech arm of the state government, in 2000 high schools from December 2022. The scheme, which will benefit 1.2 million school children, is the first of its kind in India.

According to a report by IANS, V Sivankutty, Kerala's Minister for General Education, on Saturday, November 26, said this will facilitate innovative ways for increasing the knowledge skills of students through fun learning and the inauguration of 9000 Robotic Labs through Little KITEs, the largest ICT Network of students in India, will be done by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on December 8.

"Robotics is an important training component under the Little KITES programme, through which, students in public schools will get hands-on training in the latest technologies areas such as robotics, IoT and Artificial Intelligence. Moreover, the programming training as part of this would help in the enhancement of creative thinking and problem-solving ability of students, which would help them in the learning of all subjects," said Sivankutty.

K Anvar Sadath, Chief Executive Officer of KITE, said each robotic kit deployed to school comprises of Arduino Uno Rev3, LEDs, SG90 Mini Servo Motor, LDR light sensor module, IR sensor module, active buzzer module, push button, bread button, jumper wires and resistors.

What's on the agenda?
"KITE will provide further support to schools to source additional spares, if required, from the local market by using the funds provided for Little KITEs units," said Sadath. In addition to the deployment of robotic kits in schools, 4000 KITE Masters would also be trained using a specific training module on how to use this equipment in schools.

Using these KITE Masters, KITE is imparting training directly to 60,000 students. The Little KITES members thus trained, would, in turn, train other students which would directly benefit over 12 lakh students through this initiative. Students will also be trained in various activities, including the development of traffic signals, automatic street lights activated through light sensing, electronic dios, automatic door and security alarm.

Among the other training sessions that would be imparted would be on electronic voting machines, audio-controlled home automation (IoT) and walking sticks for the visually challenged. Further, the creation of computer games using Scratch, the development of mobile apps using App Inventor by the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Artificial Intelligence-based activities are also planned for students as part of this programme.