Electronics, Arduino & Robotics for Rural Students, Palghar

Palghar, Maharashtra · representing e-Yantra, IIT Bombay · with Nitya Saarthi

Overview

I worked with Nitya Saarthi and this year’s cohort of their students to teach electronics, Arduino and robotics. The 40 students in the hands-on session were in classes 9 to 11, from a very remote rural area where access to technology, and to information about it, is scarce. I also got to interact with the rest of the cohort, about 200 students.

What We Did

Students learn concepts like Ohm’s law as equations in a textbook. We started by connecting that physics to the real world, with circuits the students could build and see working. From there we spent most of the time playing with Arduino and robots, so the students could go from understanding a concept to programming something that acts on it.

• Electronics basics: voltage, current and resistance, with Ohm’s law shown on real components.
• Arduino: programming a microcontroller to control circuits the students built.
• AlphaBot robots: students worked towards writing their own logic to make the robot move, trace different shapes, and respond using conditional logic.

Visits

• Palghar Fab Lab: the local fabrication lab.
• Govardhan Skill Centre: a vocational education facility for rural youth. This was a visit to see their work.