By Sujata Rajpal

About 40-odd students of 8th grade assemble in a classroom and are making miniature cars out of sun board, toothpicks, rubber bands and other such material. Each vehicle is unique in itself — single seater with no boot space, family passenger car and some resemble a big tow truck. Ask the students what they are doing and they reply in unison, ‘We are making a car that doesn’t crash.’

The students are given an assortment of raw material to choose from to manufacture the car within a fixed budget; it is up to them how they want their vehicle to look like. Mind you, it is no craft class, it is the Tinkering Lab.

I was curious to see the Tinkering Lab live when I heard of the concept. On a busy Monday morning at 11.30, I find myself attending an 80 min  Tinkering Lab session at Lions West Sevaniketan School in Gokulam. After the car is manufactured, an egg is placed in place of the driver and the car is ready for the test drive. The students are given a problem that the car shouldn’t crash. They have to find a solution however they want to.

‘I don’t miss school on Mondays even if I am sick because we have tinkering lab on Mondays,’ says Samudyatha, an enthusiastic 8th grader.

Started in 2014 by two ex-techies from Namma Mysuru, with tinkering as a medium, Science Ashram aims to revolutionise the education system with curriculum that encompasses STEM education and beyond. Problems that mimic real-world scenarios empower children with necessary skills and competence to face challenges in the future thus preparing them for life beyond the classroom. Even adults would enjoy dabbling in it. It aims at reorienting education from knowledge acquisition to skill mastery thus granting the students the freedom to innovate and take decisions.

‘It is a revolutionary concept aimed at making our children think out of the box.  We introduced the Tinkering Labs in 2018 for the students of 6th, 7th and 8th grades and the newly gained confidence in the students is conspicuous,’ beams Ln. K.S. Gururaja, the President of the School. ‘The entire cost of the project is borne by the school. It is completely free for the children.’

Why the need for Tinkering Labs: The academic curriculum doesn’t allow much scope for experimentation and is not application oriented. Conventional teaching is aimed at producing workers for industries but the economy doesn’t need only workers, it also needs leaders, consumers, thinkers. Most importantly, there is a need to reinvent our skill sets at every stage hence the concept of Science Ashram,’ explains Rohan Ramanuja, an ex-techie from SJCE who started Science Ashram with childhood friend and college mate Dhruva V. Rao.

‘The Lions Sevaniketan School was very encouraging when we sent the proposal to them. As of now, we have introduced the concept in 15 schools in Mysore and Bangalore. We plan to increase it to 30 this year and take it to other cities.’

I watch the children work in teams, discussing with each other, helping those who are stuck. ‘The world belongs to artificial intelligence. We are very good at reproducing what we have learnt but little deviation from it and we whine the question paper is out of syllabus,’ laughs Rohan who is walking me through his Start-Up, the proud smile playing on his lips all through.

What’s unique: Unlike conventional curriculum, there is no uniform takeaways for the participants. To each one to his own. The most interesting about the whole concept is it allows children to make mistakes and learn from them. There is no teacher, only a facilitator.

I am eager to evaluate what I have been told. I approach a bunch of students and ask them what they have learnt by making a car that doesn’t crash. ‘Now I know how to design a car,’ says Dhanyatha. ‘It also helps us in learning how to take decisions,’ adds Harshini. ‘After making the car, I like to study Science.’

I notice a shy looking boy who hasn’t opened his mouth until now. I lean towards him. ‘What is the learning for you dear?’

‘Maam, we should always wear seat belts while driving. My egg (read driver) fell out of the car in the test ride because I hadn’t put seat belt for him.’