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~ Poovizhi, Arun and Murali

On December 17, we met Dr. Kota Harinarayana who is the Father of Sriman Kota who works with us in Quilt content team. Dr. Kota Harinarayana headed a determined team that tested the first flight of the Light combat aircraft(LCA). For more info click here

We started our conversation by introducing who we are, what we really care for and what we do in STEM land Aura Auro Design.

Dr. Kota Harinarayana shared about his dream of using technology to aid agriculture that reaches farmers at ease. For example using Drone for capturing images of the field for image processing  using AI to overcome the disadvantage of using satellite.

At the end of our conversation, we all felt grateful and acknowledged.

Me  and Murali went to Aikiyam STEM land and gave a session on Geogebra. We started with  asking children how to  find the area of the square and rectangle. Children started tell all the misconceptions related to the topic. Children told all the key word that they knew. Then i drew and explained on the black board. Murali then explained and showed step by step to the children. Children understood how to find the area and perimeter.  we wrote few questions on the black board and asked them to draw and to find the area using Geogebra software. Children learnt the unit to find the area. All the children were able to build build and solve the questions . Children also understand how many 1 cm / m  square can be fit inside for the given area.  The session went really well and children were able to find the area and perimeter at the end of the session.

      

   

~ R.Sivaraman

On the day 2rd Dec ’19, I made three presentations for RAMA, HANUMAN, and RAVANA . The presentations were mainly focused on the DO, THINK, VALUES of the three characters in the Ramayana epic. Pointing outs were done with our inspiration team.

~Ranjith and sivaraman

Responsive web page development (HTML, CSS, and jQuery).

This week we got an assignment from our mentor (umang) to write HTML and CSS code to create a drop-down menu for the weekly update page that we are currently working on.

We also explore jQuery to create a drop-down effect on the menu.

~Poovizhi, Saranya

There were around 20 kids from 6th std above. Thamarai facilitators said that they wanted to teach mathematics using materials. To start with basics we used Dienes block to visualize the arithmetic operations. Children learnt about cube, rod and plate and recalled place values .  I wrote the numbers and the operator on the board and asked children to find the answer for it using Dienes block. Children were split into four teams and worked as a team. Facilitators also learnt along with the children. Through this, children got clarity of how carry over works and why do we carry over , borrow and whether we carry over ones, tens or hundreds based on the place value.

A new Intern (Shivaram) has joined the team, he will be working on Responsive web page development (HTML and CSS), school software and learning to program the mindstorm.

Initially he built a small bot with wheels and learned powering and controlling the motors through the user interface. The batteries were discharging way too quick than expected and caused a halt in the learning.  Then I checked the back of the battery case there were 6 AA batteries connected in series resulting to 9V. I decided to use a power supply and showed him how to connect 🙂 . Now he was all set with uninterrupted power supply. By the end of the third day he had programmed a line follower.

~ Sundar.K, Abilash.S

Abilash who is taking up scaling of STEM Land in Auroville schools wanted to introduce Lego Mindstorms to children from TLC ( Theivan, Meet, and Daniel) who were interested in robotics. I (Sundar) took this opportunity to create a mixed group environment. I knew some children (Murali, Yuvan and Jeeva) who had already built robots using Mindstorms in Udavi and knew how things work. Murail came in early and set up the laptops with the instruction and PDF for building various robots. He initially was very reluctant in working with children with other background. Once all the children arrived in STEM Land we started with a few moments of silence and refreshed the ground rules. Initially they were a bit shy to speak and mingle, but as they started to work it became normal and the goal became important on building the robot. Both of the students were enjoying the session and were working very eagerly to complete (snake bot and humanoid) it within the day, due to lack of time they had to store the work in progress to be continued later next week.

~ Arun, Murali

In STEMland we take up one topic in math for a week (sometimes a couple of weeks) and children are asked to explore more about the topic. We started with integers for the first two weeks and children presented many projects to demonstrate what they know about integers. (more info on our previous blog)

Followed by that we had Abalone week in STEMland. Abalone is a strategy game (more info..) and is one of the popular games in STEMland. Children of all schools were encouraged to play abalone and compete with each other. Children practiced playing for a week  with their pals.

On September 25^th we had the final event. 42 children from Isaiambalam (which included ex-students) and Udavi school participated. We had a knock out round to start with and children were asked to compete with each other. Many of the children were knocked off and only four children were left to play the final round. The following four children competed  with each other in a league fashion. The one who won maximum number of games was considered winner.

1. Ayush (ex-student of Isaiambalam)
2. Shushma (Udavi)
3. Vishal (Udavi)
4. Udhay (Isaiambalam)

Ayush won against all the contestants and was declared winner.

 

~Pratap , Murali, Poovizhi

On 2019/10/11 we had the third meet with the Scaling group. More information on the second meet can be found at : Link to previous session

This time Abilash started by sharing what he did in Auroville schools .We did the Siphon experiment which  involves air and water pressure between two containers of water connected through a pipe.When the water levels are equal in the both containers,it attains equilibrium state.For more information refer the link below: Siphon experiments

Saravanan from Aikiyam has made maths materials like 1)integer game using number chart and 2 dice.It contains numbers starting from 0 to 89 (both positive and negative side).A target has to be set before starting the game i.e 25 (both positive and negative side). One die contains numbers from 4 to 9.Another die contains three (+) symbols and (-) symbols.Both dice should be rolled simultaneously.The number indicates number of boxes to move while the symbol indicates the direction to move.

2)A tool for Quadrilateral shapes with different angles using scales and pro-circles.

Sanjeev suggested Ganit mala and ganit rack to do integer calculations which should be easy for children to visualize and do calculations faster.