In this pressure cooker-esque world of education and competition, it is a never ending battle between fun and scholastics for children. The ever increasing burden of the curriculum always tends to knock the timeslot of play out of children’s routines. Sometimes even hobby and passions get caught in the crossfire of rigorous learning. These get flung out as well. The more kids move through high school, the more play-time loses its turf to tuitions, coachings and other study-related activities. With this being the case, even edutainment loses its turf to mainstream education. Let’s discuss one such curious case.

Meet Suryaprakash, a ninth grader from DAV School, Adambakkam. His tale is one that is getting increasingly regular in today’s high intensity education system. Suryaprakash, who recently graduated from Kidobotikz, is an old student. Surprisingly it has taken him 3 years to complete his robotics course from commencement to finish. I ask him why and he immediately cuts a sorry figure. He says his schedule is jam packed with schooling and classes that he hardly got any leisurely weekends in the last 3 years to take up robotics and finish it in a stretch. He completed his courseware somewhere towards the end of 2014, but couldn’t spend enough time on his passion thanks to his rigorous schooling. Suryaprakash, who feels his school could do a little bit more to encourage science fairs and contests on the premises, has not displayed any robotic experiments at school. Nor do his friends and teachers know that he is learning robotics at such a young age. On the other hand, he has been quite active in all of Kidobotikz conducted robotic events. He says he has participated in robotic events all the way back to Kidobotikz Robo Games 2014 where he participated in the December edition. In all these events, he has fielded a variety of projects ranging from “feed the fish” in the dec-2014 edition to a “Home Automation” concept in April 2015. He was also a part of the Kidobotikz team which visited NIT Calicut to take part in the events there. It all started when he accidentally discovered about Kidobotikz courses when he was in the vicinity to buy a Solar panel for his own project.

After completing his Graduation recently, he is now taking up Raspberry Pi classes at Kidobotikz where he is learning programming, his favourite area of interest. However, luck isn’t always on his side. The weekend classes that he takes here are now clashing with his IIT-JEE coaching classes which also fall on the weekend. So, he had to request the Kidobotikz management to allow him to take compensatory classes. His trainers, sympathetic to his cause and appreciative of his interest to learn, now take separate classes for him on Saturday evenings after he visits Kidobotikz on his way back from IIT-JEE classes. One cannot help but feel awe for this 15 year old who shuttles his way across the city to balance academics and passions. He dreams of doing a Bachelors degree in Mechatronics at one of the IITs.

Happy Roboting ! !