Children should play with toys, dismantle them to understand how they are made, and learn to use the motors in them elsewhere, too

In class, children should share notes with friends for peer learning and peer review

Many beliefs of parents were debunked at an inter-school robotics championship where close to 150 students showed their expertise in commanding their robots to execute and complete specific tasks, working in teams.

The zonal round of the first inter-school robotics championship organised by the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) in collaboration with the Technology Innovation Hub of IIT Delhi was held at La Martiniere for Girls on Tuesday. Each of the 30 participating schools had to build a house with a robot within three minutes.

The CISCE has introduced robotics and AI as a subject in Class X and the first batch of students will take the board exam (ICSE) in 2025.

The competition goes beyond “traditional classroom learning and offering a transformative educational experience that empowers students to become adept problem solvers and innovators,” the council had said in a circular in July.

“The competition is like an experimental lab for students where they are executing their ideas, learning the skills, working in a team, bouncing ideas off one another, in an informal setting as against a classroom setting where they are expected to learn and deliver,” said S.K. Saha, project director, I-Hub Foundation for Cobotics ( IHFC), Technology Innovation Hub of IIT Delhi. Saha was the guest of honour at the event.

Cobotics is collaborative robotics where human beings work with robots, he said.

“This is important for our country because we don’t want people to lose their jobs, which is a typical fear of robotic applications,” he said.

“Unfortunately, parents say do not share your notes with your friends but please do it because it provides scope for self-improvement. Allow your friends to review your work because it is not the teacher alone who is giving you marks but friends giving feedback,” said Saha.

Unlike most parents, Saha said he encouraged students to dismantle a toy and learn its functions and how its parts can be used in a different machine.

The event was spread across the school and students were seen in their classrooms and corridors, bent over their robots, programming them or connecting their wires. Each team had five students and a teacher as a mentor.

The six finalists from the zonal round will compete against the finalists of the west, south and north zone in the finals scheduled in November in Hyderabad.

“As an institution, we are keen to strike a balance of preserving our rich heritage and equally, staying abreast with modern technology. It also testifies the commitment of CISCE to promote skill development in science and technology for school students,” said Rupkatha Sarkar, principal of the 188-year-old La Martiniere for Girls.

“The fact that robotics is part of the curriculum at the school level will give students an advantage when they take it up at the higher level,” she said.

The chief guest for the event, Subhabrata Chaudhuri, director of the Birla Industrial & Technological Museum (BITM), said the competition allowed students to learn beyond textbooks.

“The aspirations of students are changing. They want everything to be AI or computer-based. We try to educate them in an informal set-up where what they are learning in our museum is supplementing their classroom experience,” he said.