Posted on

Aadu Puli Attam

The Lambs and Tigers Game locally referred as the Game of Goats and Tigers (Tamil: Aadu puli aatam, Telugu: Meka puli aata, Kannada: Aadu Huli aata) or Pulijudam, is a strategic, two-player (or 2 teams) leopard hunt game that is played in south India. The game is asymmetric in that one player controls three tigers and the other player controls up to 15 lambs/goats. The tigers ‘hunt’ the goats while the goats attempt to block the tigers’ movements.

  • This is the ancient game played in southern part of India especially in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
  • The board is drawn on parapet inside the mahadwara of the Chamundeshwari temple atop Chamundi Betta (hill) in Mysore, Karnataka
  • This game helps people to develop strategy and concept of teamwork by teaching that even though weak, if united, one can vanquish the stronger enemy as a team.
  • This game is very similar to the Korean game of Yut.
Posted on

Shifu program Research paper review

 

———————– REVIEW 1 ———————

SUBMISSION: 8

TITLE: THE POSSIBLE MISSING INGREDIENTS IN ENGINEERING HIGHER EDUCATION –MASTERING SELF, AGENCY TO SHIFT DISEMPOWERING NORMS AND SOCIALIZATION AND MASTERING TECHNICAL SKILLS

AUTHORS: Arun Arul Selvam, Sri Bhavani Arul, Narmadha Anandavelu, Santhosh Kathiresan, Sivaraman Ramamoorthy and Sanjeev Ranganathan

 

———– Overall evaluation ———–

SCORE: 2 (accept)

—– TEXT:

The authors need to be appreciated for writing a reflective article on the gaps in their learning and how they overcame these gaps. Anyone who has had a moderate engagement with engineering students in India, especially those in the average technological institutions, recognizes  the seriousness of the problem. The authors correctly point out that an educational system that merely focuses on making the students pass the examinations cannot provide comprehensive education.

 

It is often pointed out that in higher education institutions in India, including engineering colleges, students are not trained to think on their own. Relatedly, they are also generally not encouraged to build their ethical consciousness based on rationality, develop the ability to connect with others, learn something independently as well as give and take feedback in mutually helpful ways.

 

The authors of this article, three young men and two young women of ages 23 and 24, are engineering graduates from engineering colleges in villages around Pondicherry. They attend a program — titled BnB Shifu — which is aimed to make participants highly skilled in technical areas such as programming and VLSI Design. The stated goal of this ‘shifu’ (‘master’ in Mandarin) program is to build the skills necessary for success in the IT and electronics business by laying a strong intellectual and spiritual foundation that emphasizes “self-awareness, self-regulation, responsibility, dignity, equity and courage to create.”

 

The participants note that they went through several exercises as a result of which they increased their ability to focus, to learn things independently, synthesize old information and new information and get feedback from a mentor. Unlike the stressful and exam-oriented classroom practices that they had experienced in their engineering colleges, the participants were given the space to learn in a relaxed manner at their own pace. As a result of these exercises, they became more disciplined individuals and better learners; socially they became as caring about others as they were about themselves. While interacting with people in the Auroville community, they also became more courageous, which supplemented their efforts to be independent learners.

 

As someone teaching humanities to engineering students, this reviewer gets the sense that the “Shifu” training addresses the general gaps in technical education, especially the problems experienced by students from non-privileged and non-urban backgrounds. This paper needs our attention and the authors have an important message to convey to the planners of engineering education. This can also be seen as a plea for weaving a greater component of humanities into the engineering curriculum, which would give the students a holistic outlook and integrity in character.

 

However, this reviewer has some problems with the authors’ use of ‘universal values’, which purportedly are cultivated by the students through this program. In some sense, it is correct, as all students need to learn to be disciplined, focused, ethical and interactive to function optimally in academic and industry situations. However, ‘universality’ seems to erase out certain important cultural, linguistic and personal qualities, which each individual brings in as a valuable contribution to an organization.

 

———————– REVIEW 2 ———————

SUBMISSION: 8

TITLE: THE POSSIBLE MISSING INGREDIENTS IN ENGINEERING HIGHER EDUCATION –MASTERING SELF, AGENCY TO SHIFT DISEMPOWERING NORMS AND SOCIALIZATION AND MASTERING TECHNICAL SKILLS

AUTHORS: Arun Arul Selvam, Sri Bhavani Arul, Narmadha Anandavelu, Santhosh Kathiresan, Sivaraman Ramamoorthy and Sanjeev Ranganathan

 

———– Overall evaluation ———–

SCORE: 2 (accept)

—– TEXT:

Autoethnography of 5 Youth (case study-like) in 1 year residential program

 

–       There are several long lists of what the paper is addressing (eg. self-awareness, self-regulation, responsibility, confidence, socialization, system thinking, five minds of the future etc.) It’s not clear in the beginning exactly what components of this program will be discussed and how they are all assessed. This was somewhat clarified with the research questions, but the paper could still benefit from more focus. After reading the ‘Higher Education in India: Challenges and Opportunities” section, it would be most clear if the paper were organized by the five minds of the future and to discuss all other constructs as subsets of those five main topics.

–       For research methodology, the use of autoethnography is a strength and aligns with the goals of the paper since it allows for the authors to tell their own story of their own experiences. It is also a strength that both male and female students are included in the study.

–       It is helpful that the authors describe the program before addressing the research questions. It is especially helpful to hear what daily life in the program is like, since it is such a holistic and immersive experience.

–       It is beneficial for readers that the authors included specific details of components of the program that were helpful to them (eg. Coursera, code-wars, etc.)

–       It is briefly mentioned at the end that the authors found meaningful employment. It would be helpful to learn more about the employment outcomes that have come after completion of the program.

–       Overall, it is important to share this information about the authors’ experiences with this program with a wider audience. My main suggestion to the authors is to be sure the talk is organized to focus on just a few main points. When there are too many topics included, it gets confusing and difficult to follow. I wouldn’t want the important points to be lost among too much information.

 

Our Reflections: 

 

Arun : 

My name is Arun. I stand for happiness for myself and others. While writing the paper, it helped to recall what are all things we came through and how we worked in pears. While working with peers, I learned a lot. It helped me to break through my barriers. I’m excited to do it further because our paper got selected. I acknowledge all the people who all supported the Shifu program and gave me a valuable opportunity to write up the paper. The one that I have been through helped me to learn new things. While writing up the paper, I can easily compare my past work experience and how I’m working now.

 

Narmadha: 

My name is Narmadha and I stand for equality and happiness for myself and others.The first time I had a chance to write a research paper and I learned how to write a research paper. While writing the research paper I have noticed how much I developed my skills and competency I learned to synthesize what I have learned and I am able to see the difference in me. We have got a positive review from researchers for our work and I felt happy and I am thankful to everyone who ever supported the Shifu program.

 

Santhosh:

My name is Santhosh, I stand for kindness and equity for myself and others. I had a good opportunity to share my experience in Research paper about Shifu program. When I started narrating it, I felt very happy because this will be a cultural shift and also while narrating it, I had noticed all my benefits and opportunities in learning comparing with my College learning.

 

Sri Bhavani :

My name is Sri Bhavani. I stand for love and equality for myself and others. It is a new and great experience for me while writing the research paper. I had a chance to reflect on my learnings

in the past year. I noticed my system shift from this course, it is shifted from marks focused to acquiring skills. We experimented with a different methodology of learning which helps us to enhance mental, physical as well as competency to work in the technical field. I am very much happy when we receive the reviews for the paper. It conveyed the essence of the paper to reviewers. I am greatly looking forward to the paper being published.

Posted on

Angle sum property of a triangle using GeoGebra

A triangle has three sides and three angles, one at each vertex. The angle sum property of a triangle states that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to 180º. Whether a triangle is an acute, obtuse, or a right triangle, the sum of its interior angles is always 180º.

The angle sum property of a triangle is one of the most frequently used properties in geometry. 

The angle sum property is used to find the measure of an unknown interior angle when the values of the other two angles are known.

Let’s see the practical execution of the angle sum property of the triangle using GeoGebra.

Step 1:

  • Plot two points and draw a triangle using the polygon.
  • Let’s name it ABC.
  • Now find the midpoint of AC and BC by clicking on the midpoint or center icon.
  • That midpoint is named point D. 
  • By using a slider operation, create an angle slider (r) with the following values.
    • Set Min – 0 degree; Max- 180 degrees and increment as 10 degrees.
  • Now by using rotate around point operation, click on point D and set the degree of rotation to slider r and set it as clockwise direction and click ok.

   

                   

  • The same way create another slider operation for p and set the corresponding angle value as p.
  • By using the Angle measure operation measure the angles and label and colour them accordingly.
  • Give the input as the Sum of the angles and we can see the output as 180 degrees.
  • Now the slider can be moved and the angle sum property can be observed.  
  • Even point C can be moved to observe the angle sum property for different angle combinations.

Please find the link below:

https://www.geogebra.org/classic/u6eer35p

Posted on

Aurovidhiya seminar

 

The schools of Auroville and C3SL work on the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother of Integral Education. The philosophy of Sri Aurobindo of the integral development of the child (Aurobindo, 1921, pp.1-8) emphasizes self-knowledge and assumes an important relevance in the recent National Education Policy that is based on his work and states that “knowledge is a deep-seated treasure and education helps in its manifestation as the perfection which is already within an individual.” The philosophy creates guiding principles for teachers and in how we engage with children. The three principles of true education by Sri Aurobindo are:

  • Nothing can be taught
  • The mind needs to be consulted in its growth
  • From near to far

The first principle can be linked to the constructivist theory that knowledge cannot be forced into a child’s mind. The role of a teacher is not to mould or hammer a child into the form desired by the adult. The teacher is a guide, or mentor that supports and encourages a child in the process of learning, enabling them to evolve towards perfection. Our engagement with children follows this principle.

The second principle indicates that the child needs to be consulted in his/her learning. This is done at C3SL as the elder children plan what they want to work on and how they want to organize themselves to do it with the broad ground rules of respecting themselves, others, and the materials. With younger children, this aspect was put into practice in the co-creation of challenges along with them.

The third principle is to work from near to far. To work from what is tangible and accessible to children to what is abstract to them. The children work on projects they care about in the environment they engage with and as they grow older move towards more abstract ideas. This paper will present projects both in the physical world and also in the abstract world.

Such an education addresses the purpose of education beyond fitting in and standing out and knowing oneself and one’s purpose in the world. The environment most suited for Integral Education is one where the child progressively learns about himself/herself and can make choices on their own. This environment is broadly referred to as ‘Free Progress’, where children are provided the freedom to make progress towards learning and understanding themselves deeply. At a practical level, this appears as freedom with responsibility in learning. While the responsibility of learning rests with the child, it is the teacher/facilitator who has a big role in creating a meaningful learning environment and this role is far larger than that of a traditional didactic teacher.

Values form the essential basis of actions and are required for the improvement of the social aspects of learning and for forming a learning community. However, ‘teaching values’ has its limitations, and incorporating them in society and in our work can be challenging. Self-awareness and personal transformation are necessary, but not sufficient for social transformation. We also work on RTL (Radical Transformational Leadership) with children by looking at system thinking and noticing patterns and how we can align our actions, and thoughts to the values we care about for a Conscious Full Spectrum Response capacity-building framework. This also provides us with a more holistic view of how we would like to access our work beyond academic achievement.

 

In this workshop, we will look first at the exploration of inner capacities through leadership tools and how it has the potential for transforming reactions of fear into conscious responses based on the highest possibility in both teachers and students. We will then engage with some technical aspects of developing the mental being through technology while holding these values and interacting in the kind of environment we would like to create for children with an introduction to some of the hands-on work we do.

‘The progress of the child guided by the soul and not subjected to habits, conventions, and preconceived ideas is illustrative of a system of free progress’ (The Mother, 1956). By the end of the workshop, we hold that we would have conveyed how at C3SL we develop the values of responsibility, equality, and the courage to create in children and you can take back some reflections on how you will do this with the children.

We presented in the mental domain.

Plan for the workshop:

Day 1:

Introduction to STEM land

Stewardship – Knowing who I am?

Stand(Universal value)  and Fear (socialized ):

 

Knowing who I am is a possibility

Seven segment display

Day 2:

Deep listening and conscious  full-spectrum response (CFSR)

 

Programming Scratch projects

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on

Pythagoras Theorm

Pythagoras theorem states that “In a right-angled triangle, the square of the hypotenuse side is equal to the sum of squares of the other two sides“. The sides of this triangle have been named as Perpendicular, Base and Hypotenuse. Here, the hypotenuse is the longest side, as it is opposite to the angle 90°.

The Pythagoras theorem equation is expressed as, c2 = a2 + b2, where ‘c’ = hypotenuse of the right triangle and ‘a’ and ‘b’ are the other two legs. Hence, any triangle with one angle equal to 90 degrees produces a Pythagoras triangle and the Pythagoras equation can be applied in the triangle.

Pythagorean theorem, the well-known geometric theorem that the sum of the squares on the legs of a right triangle is equal to the square on the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle)—or, in familiar algebraic notation, a2 + b2 = c2.

The discovery of Pythagoras’ theorem led the Greeks to prove the existence of numbers that could not be expressed as rational numbers. For example, taking the two shorter sides of a right triangle to be 1 and 1, we are led to a hypotenuse of length, which is not a rational number.

 

Posted on

Dienes Block or Base 10 block or multi-base arithmetic blocks.

Zoltan Pal Dienes is the guy who invented these blocks. He was a Hungarian mathematician who believed that if we teach a subject like maths through games, play, and dance; chances that children will retain the information are greater than that of learning by traditional way using textbooks and lectures. He also created a six-stage theory to learn mathematics.

He was a tireless practitioner of ‘new mathematics’ and psycho mathematics (psychology of mathematics learning) 

That’s why he came up with the idea of base 10 blocks, also known as Dienes blocks which help children understand numerical concepts like place value, number operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, decimals, the square of a number. Or algebraic concepts like how to multiply two linear terms and how to find factors for algebraic expressions.

He also invented logic blocks which help children in understanding sets, differences, logical sequence, and classification. 

Dienes block are an incredibly powerful manipulative. Can be used to enhance the understanding of fundamental maths topics such as place value and the four operations.

Base ten blocks are popular in elementary school mathematics instruction, especially with topics that students struggle with such as multiplication. They are frequently used in the classroom by teachers to model concepts, as well as by students to reinforce their own understanding of said concepts. Physically manipulating objects is an important technique used in learning basic mathematic principles, particularly at the early stages of cognitive development. Studies have shown that their use, like that of most mathematical manipulatives, decreases as students move into higher grades.

Dienes block addition with carry

Students can use Dienes by manipulating them in several ways to show number and patterns. They are usually made of plastic or wood and come in four sizes which will indicate their place value.

  • Units – one’s place
  • Longs – ten’s place
  • Flats – hundred’s place
  • Blocks – thousand’s place

Multiplication of Dienes block

Dienes are important in school as they help students physically manipulate objects to learn basic principles. Being able to physically manipulate objects aids students’ early cognitive development.

 

Posted on

Circles, What Is PI? Learn using rope!

Children use a rope to draw a circle, measure the circumference of the circle, and find the value of Pi.

Circles are all similar, and “the circumference divided by the diameter” produces the same value regardless of their radius. This value is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter and is called π (Pi). This constant appears in the calculation of the area of a circle and is a type of irrational number known as a transcendental number that can be expressed neither by a fraction nor by any radical sign such as a square root, nor their combination. The number has an infinite number of decimal places, namely, 3.1415926535…, and it has now been computed to 5 trillion decimal places by computers.

The meaning of circumference is the distance around a circle or any curved geometrical shape. It is the one-dimensional linear measurement of the boundary across any two-dimensional circular surface. It follows the same principle behind finding the perimeter of any polygon, which is why calculating the circumference of a circle is also known as the perimeter of a circle.

The circumference of the circle is equal to the length of its boundary. This means that the perimeter of a circle is equal to its circumference. The length of the rope that wraps around the circle’s boundary perfectly will be equal to its circumference. The below-given figure helps you visualize the same. The circumference can be measured by using the given formula:

Circumference of a circle = 2πR =  π D

where ‘r’ is the radius of the circle and π is the mathematical constant whose value is approximated to 3.14 or 22/7. The circumference of a circle can be used to find the area of that circle.

For a circle with radius ‘r’ and circumference ‘C’:

  • π = Circumference/Diameter
  • π = C/2r = C/d
  • C = 2πr

 

~Prabaharan and Bakiya

 

Posted on

Li-Fi

LiFi, also known as “Light Fidelity” is a wireless optical networking technology, which uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to transmit data. In 2011, professor Harald Haas made a LiFi demonstration at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Global Talk on Visible Light Communication (VLC).

When an electrical current goes through to a LED light bulb, a stream of light (photons) emits from the lamp. LED bulbs are semiconductor devices, which means that the brightness of the light flowing through them can change at extremely high speeds. The signal is sent by modulating the light at different rates. The signal can then be received by a detector that interprets the changes in light intensity (the signal) as data. Also when the LED is ON, you transmit a digital 1, and when it is OFF, you transmit a 0.

From a laptop, the audio signal transmits through the light-emitting diode (LED) where the brightness of the light flowing through them can change at extremely high speeds. We used a solar panel as a receiver, the signal is amplified and sent as audio output in the speaker.

Video demonstrates how simple LiFi work’s.

 

 

Posted on

Match Stick Shapes

~jennifer, bakyalashmi

As part of learning, the session we had with Ramanujam was very much interesting. The matchsticks activity which helps the students to identify the basic shapes, talk mathematically and improves their way of thinking was wonderful. We had different task to do with matchsticks we have listed them below and tried them with the kids at home.

Task 1: Make an identical copy of these shapes

In this task, we asked them to make some shapes using matchsticks. The kids saw the shapes and they tried to make the identical copy of it.  Some shapes were easy for them to make and for some they struggled since placing matchstick at proper angle was difficult for them.

Some of the shapes we gave to them are,

After this task, we can ask the children which are difficult to make why is it so. We can ask them to point the shapes, what are the shape we can find inside each shape etc.

Task 2: Use the Matchsticks to make shapes of your own

In this task we asked them to use their own idea to create the shape they like. They started to create lot of shapes. Some of them are,

From this the children can understand what are the shapes which are possible with equal sides, the shapes which needs at least one side to be decimal values and the shapes which cannot be obtained with whole numbers. And also, we found some of the shapes which are not possible with matchsticks.

Task 3: Describe the shape that you made to your friend so that he/she can make an identical shape without seeing your shape. Think over how you will describe the shape and write it down. Then read it aloud to your friend so that he/she can make the same shape

While describing and discussing the shape together the children will learn the mathematical terms easily. We tried this with a shape,

The shape we took is,

The instruction given are,

1. Place a match stick horizontally.

2. keep another match stick place one end in the center of the first matchstick in 60 degree.

3. repeat the same by taking one more match stick to the second matchstick.

4. take 3 more matchstick and repeat the process to get the inner hexagon portion.

5. close all edges by 6 matchsticks to get an outer hexagon.

And what I got from her is,