C3STREAM Land Designs

~Sharat Kumar & Vasanth

The power of predictive modelling and Machine Learning in particular. We had an opportunity to put it to test, by working on the prediction of the US election, a couple of weeks prior to the US Presidential Election. WE approached this using supervised learning. First, we considered two states of America, Texas (Republican/healthy Red state) and California (Democratic/ strong Blue state). We scraped around 10000 tweets for 5 Days from twitter for both the states. We tagged red as Pro-Trump/Anti-Biden and treated Blue as  Pro-Biden/Anti-Trump. 

We selected 100 top Fans of Biden and Trump across the US, and we scraped tweets relevant to US elections from those handles for one day. We trained a model using those tagged data into an AI machine. After training, the tool considers 70% of the data to train and the rest 30% for validation and testing. During the process, a confusion matrix is formed. A confusion matrix is a table describing the performance of a classification model (or “classifier”) on a set of test data for which the correct values are known. 

This table shows how often the model classified each label correctly (in blue), and which labels were most often confused for that label (in grey). 

We created two models out of them, in one model, when we feed an individual’s tweet history into the machine, it will identify whether the person is a Trump/Biden fan. Another model is when we provide the Twitter data of a particular state; the model predicts who has more support in that state. We used the second model, and we fed the twitter data of 11 swing states in the US. 

In 8 states among the 11, we predicted the right result. We got an accuracy of 72.72% as our result. 

This gave a first hand experience of the power of AI and Machine learning. While these tools can be used to predict and prescribe inputs for various business decisions it can also be an effective platform for addressing several complex societal problems. We are excited to engage and learn more on the underlying capabilities these new age platforms offer.

~ Poovizhi.P

I’ve got an opportunity to speak in an international webinar organized by Dr. Monica Sharma on the topic digital divide. Below is the link to a 6 min video of the speech. It was a great experience to be part an international webinar. I learnt that where ever I may be and whatever work I do, I am connected with each one of us in the world in breaking the unhealthy isms from being in my inner capacity.

Here is what I shared.

In my experience one digital divide is employment. People who have completed Engineering in and around my village have hard time finding engineering jobs. Some of my engineering classmates, specifically girls have got married, others work in non-engineering jobs like receptionist, data entry and teaching.

This is partly because of lack of practical skills. Even in college where I was doing a degree in computer science we had limited access to few shared computers. It was enough to read text books and pass exams. Most of us didn’t have access to laptops and internet at home to explore further. After 4 years I had a degree but not much programming skills.

At STEM land I learned programming first with a visual programming language from children and then professional programming languages. When I was learning programming from children, no one made fun of me. In time I realized that a supportive environment for learning had been built at STEM land not only by the facilitators, but also the children who also practice the RTL tools. I see such a culture of supporting risk takers shifting mediocracy to excellence.

STEM lands are located in rural schools. Even with poor internet children are able to share the projects and programs they make with other children through a local area network. Through this I see the shift from being stuck without resources to having the courage to create alternatives.

There is digital divide in rural area due to the socio- economic background and very few people have access to computers, laptops and tabs. Many people have access to smart phones but internet is an issue. They have limited internet because the tower is not close or may not be able to afford internet. In the pandemic this got worse because people are earning less. To reach children in this time we send practice assignments and give feedback through Whatsapp. For those who don’t have access to internet I create physical worksheets that parents pick up or met children individually at home.

I can see that genderism is strengthened by society in technology. After certain age girls have a lot of constraints in my society. For example, boys have the freedom to come to STEM land in the evenings after school whereas girls do not. One issue is safety due to alcoholism, gangs and harassments in the evening, but much of it is social pressure. In response sleepovers where both boys and girls stay over at the school once a week has become a norm at least in one of our schools.

I wanted children from other villages and schools to also benefit from STEM land in the evenings. I faced the same constraints and fear of traveling, but I don’t want to leave it just because I am born as girl. I go to such a center and support children and take precautions that I can.

In my village alcoholism is a major issue and many children and women suffer as the men beat their wife and children and they don’t have a quiet space at home to study. The youth planned a play to bring awareness about alcoholism but none of girls participated because it is not considered socially ok. I had a fear of judgment but I noticed it and being in my values I took part. This action inspired four other girls and a married women. This has started many new conversations about alcoholism.

As a team in STEM land we look to break these isms in technology. When I joined STEM land three years ago there was only one female engineer. The women to men ratio was 1:6 and now in the technical team its getting closer to an equal ratio.

To break the digital divide

1. I need to develop an environment for youth and children to develop skills

2. I need to be more than an engineer to break genderism, groupism, alcoholism, ageism

3. I need to work from responsibility, equality and courage to create.

~Saranya

We have learnt the following topics and few techniques, puzzle(ken-ken) also learnt new information like Kaprekar constant, Collatz conjecture in excel. September 11(world trade centre hijacked)  etc…

C3STREAM Land Designs delivers First IC chip:

~Ranjith, Saranya

Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating an integrated circuit (IC) by combining thousands of transistors into a single chip.

One year back, we started learning the VLSI layout and design process with the support of “Aura Semiconductor Pvt Ltd” (Aura is a fabless semiconductor company innovating high-performance IC products for IoT Radios, Timing, and Portable Audio markets).

Over the year we have been involved with automation using SKILL (Lisp-based Cadence programming language) and layout workflow (python, shell scripting, etc), learning layout methodology, and aspects to keep in mind in layout. An example of SKILL code was the automation of a differential pair which is a very common circuit block in analog circuit design.  This process in the last year has got us now only comfortable with the layout, but also the entire cadence flow and supported the group at Aura automate small aspects of their work.

We were trained in the layout by our mentor by assigning us small blocks that were used in real designs starting from digital and then analog. After completion of a layout, we got feedback from our mentor on matching, MOS transistors effects like LOD, constraints in floor planning and routing, accounting, or parasitic such as IR drops and capacitance. The time we took for each block also reduced as we worked on more blocks and we could see our progress in not only laying a block but also reduced time in making sure that it satisfied DRC (Design Rule Checker) and LVS (Layout vs schematic). This process of working on real blocks helped us improve our skill, speed, and confidence and gave us exposure to different kinds of blocks.

A couple of months back we were included in a team on an active project with Aura. We were able to complete around 40% of the layout from Auroville. It has opened opportunities for this high-tech work to be done out of Auroville. Currently, and Siva and Vasanthraj Gandhi (who are now part of the team) are being trained by us along with Aura in a similar fashion. Looking forward to layout and in time design many more IC designs.

Example of a top-level chip:

~Sunil & Abilash

Integrating Science, Technology, Research, Engineering, Art, and Math to create holistic learning is called STREAM education. The Art Integrated (AI) education includes both visual arts (paintings, clay modelling, gaming) and performing arts (music, dance, drama).  It’s very important to incorporate kids in all of these five disciplines. If we seed these skills in our kids, it improves their practical thinking. Integrating art and science in education could increase their creative thinking and cognitive ability. It also encourages students to express science in unimaginable ways. AI-based education paves the path for experiential learning. Some of the activities to incorporate art with science are 

1. PENDULUM PAINTING

Pendulum painting is a fun activity to do with students using simple materials like water bottles, paper, paint, rope and chairs. This activity enhances creative and critical thinking among students. It will make them understand parameters like gravity, motion, momentum, and velocity. Students would be able to create a beautiful art along with conducting a pendulum experiment to know the physics behind the pendulum by practical approach.

2. PERIODIC TABLE SONG 

Teaching Periodic Table songs to kids is one of the best ways to make chemistry enjoyable. Songs have always been the best ways to remember even the most convoluted set of words at ease. The periodic table song with a supporting video that has a picture of the applications of some aspects along with music, would enable students to remember the elements of the periodic table along with applications. These kinds of activity aid both the right and left brain to store accurate information and retain it.

3. ART FROM WASTE IN SCIENCE

Plastic Pollution has become a significant concern in today’s world. This activity of making simple electronic devices like a LED torch using plastic wastes would make students learn simple electronics along with hands-on training. Making art out of garbage would enhance creativity and positive thinking in students and also would create awareness about plastic pollution.

There are no limits in education and imagination; we can use our creativity to incorporate any form of art with any science concept to bring out the best in education. Other activities like dancing or acting in a theatrical play relating science or math concepts, could cultivate expression, self-confidence, presentation skill along with understanding STEM.

Experiential Learning (Joyful Learning of Mathematics):

• Experiential learning activities will be students-centered/ focused, the learning outcomes of experiential learning are flexible and open.
• In experiential learning, the aim is to develop knowledge and skills.
• Before asking children to solve a particular question ask them the right questions which make them think. The questions should be relevant and it should make sense to them.
• Visualizing problems will help children in understanding faster way. For example.

“Good teaching is more a giving of the right questions than a giving of right answers”

How to make math class more interesting:

• Make it meaningful(asking right questions)
• Start with interesting real-life problems.
• Use concrete relatable examples(relevant examples that help them to image the real-life incident).
• Encourage creativity and ownership.