Learning How to Learn: Workshops in Kashmir

Baramulla & Sopore, Kashmir · representing e-Yantra, IIT Bombay · with Aseem Foundation · October 2025

Workshop in Baramulla
Students working with ESP32 kits
AlphaBot2 session in Sopore

Overview

With Aseem Foundation, we ran a three-day workshop for high school students at the Chinar Yuva centre in Baramulla. Because of the conflict and disruption in the region, these students have had little exposure to the technology most of us take for granted. So rather than teach one technology, the core aim was to teach them how to approach and learn new technologies on their own. We also ran a short, fast-paced session at a school in Sopore to get students excited about science.

Baramulla: 3-Day Workshop

I led the electronics and microcontroller sessions. Shantanu and Shakti took the image processing and NLP sessions. The students worked in five groups of four to five, using ESP32-based IoT and automation kits.

  • Day 1, Introduction to Microcontrollers: the basics of electronics (LEDs, resistors, voltage and current), microcontrollers and the ESP32, and the ways of talking to an ESP32, wired and wireless, including from Python.
  • Day 2, Basic Automation: LED blink and pattern tasks, breadboard and multimeter basics, sensor integration, and relay control. The afternoon covered logic, conditional statements and debugging with print statements.
  • Day 3, Image Processing & NLP: how computers interpret images, OpenCV demonstrations, how language models work, prompting basics, and running models in Google Colab.

During a break on the last day, two groups used what they had learnt on Day 2 to control an AC bulb with an ESP32. Small projects like this, grounded in everyday life, are exactly what I want students to take on: they help them solve their own problems and make them more employable.

What worked, and what I would change

  • Group-based mentoring worked well. Many students did not speak up about their doubts, and small groups gave each of them personal attention.
  • Hands-on exploration built confidence. Students were very cautious around the hardware at first. By the end, the fear of damaging components had largely gone, and they were experimenting on their own.
  • They grasped the high-level AI/ML concepts surprisingly well and connected them to real-world applications.
  • Next time: pre-install the software on every system with offline installers, since most lab machines were old and had no internet access. Also aim for one kit per student, and run the workshop over four to five days so each topic gets more depth.

Following the workshop, I also put together recommendations for a three-month IoT and electronics training program for the centre. The program is project-based: each student builds a complete IoT product that solves a local problem.

Sopore: A 3-Hour Robotics Session

At Sanctorum School in Sopore, we ran a quick, hands-on session with one goal: get the students excited about science.

The students worked with the Waveshare AlphaBot2, a two-wheel differential drive robot. They started by programming it to move and turn, then wrote conditional logic to make it trace different shapes. It was a fun, fully hands-on session.