“Since most of the parents have an engineering background, they encouraged their children to involve in robotics to improve their hardware designs and software programming,” says Ramki Ramachandran, father of Meera Ramakrishnan. However, the project was driven by the children.
“The research presentation was picked by the kids. … The kids made a list of all the disabilities to do the research on. The kids were divided into two groups—visually impaired or deaf and mute. We had the kids present an argument and solution for each of the disability. The team for visually impaired presented a stronger argument and we decided to go with this disability,” says parent Jayanthi Minisandram.
“The research presentation was picked by the kids. … The kids made a list of all the disabilities to do the research on. The kids were divided into two groups—visually impaired or deaf and mute. We had the kids present an argument and solution for each of the disability. The team for visually impaired presented a stronger argument and we decided to go with this disability,” says parent Jayanthi Minisandram.
Not all girls want to pursue engineering as a career. However, they each came away with valuable lessons in problem-solving and teamwork. “The most important thing I learned was that you should give every possibility a chance, even if you think a solution to a problem won’t work … test it anyway,” says Neha Shekhar. Aarathi Minisandram values the lesson in teamwork. “… Each one of us had our own beliefs and ideas that we had to compromise for the general good of the team.”
