Students were taught the use of theoretical knowledge to make technology help mankind SOURCE: Facebook
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi) organised a month-long boot camp for school students from May 23 till June 23. Twenty-five high school students from Classes XI and XII successfully completed the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) summer boot camp, Change.Makers, and showcased the prototypes built by them on June 24.
On this occasion, IIT Delhi also felicitated the boot camp students for their exceptional positivity, hard work, dedication and performance. The school students received valuable guidance from IIT Delhi faculty and student mentors and used state-of-the-art facilities available at the Makerspace (a DIY central research facility at IIT Delhi) to convert their impactful ideas to reality. Jay Dhariwal, professor and faculty at IIT Delhi’s Department of Design, was the coordinator for the Change.Makers boot camp.
The summer boot camp, an initiative by the Institute’s Academic Outreach and New Initiatives office, started with the students forming into teams and choosing the right problems to work on in the first week. They learnt the project relevant fabrication skills in the second week at the Makerspace.
In the third and fourth weeks, the students built and refined the functional prototypes of their electro-mechanical projects under the mentorship of the Institute faculty and students.
The nine-student team projects were about rehabilitation exercise monitoring, automating reuse of RO filtered water, aeroponics, trekker safety, quadruped terrain mapping robot, avoiding drowsiness in drivers, stretcher convertible seat in vehicles, real time text to braille translator and a rolling robot.
Speaking about the summer boot camp, Rangan Banerjee, director, IIT Delhi and professor, said, "It was fascinating to see the enthusiasm, ideas and initiative of the young school students. We hope to enthuse school children to learn by doing and solving societal problems."
During the boot camp, the students were also given tours of different research labs in the institute where they got to interact with leading researchers in the sciences and technology disciplines.
Kishlay Kisu, a school student who was part of the boot camp, said, "I am very grateful to be here. It opened so many opportunities for me. Now, the space for exploring my opportunities has become limitless! I want to thank everyone for this boot camp. Here, I learnt many new things, more than my curriculum could ever provide! Thank you."
Mrinalini Singh, another school student, said, "My experience at IIT Delhi DIY boot camp was life-changing. Before this, I had no idea about power tools, electronics, or how to create CAD models. But our faculty mentors and project scientists taught us everything and we learnt to apply the theoretical knowledge to make tech that will help mankind to step towards a sustainable future."