The young innovators of the Energy Mela

Kathmandu / July 15: In the lounging area of US Embassy’s Innovation Hub (iHUB), thirteen year old Rani Shah and her friends have set up a carnival game which they have named ‘My Lost Diamond’. She relishes the moment when she’s asked to explain about the game she has developed with her classmates. “A queen has lost her precious diamond and now it is up to the game players to help her find it. Whoever wins gets a special reward from the queen in return,” she says in a full hearted manner.

To play her game, first you have to pick a color from a colored paper pinwheel. Once that is done, the game operator will switch on a circuit that rotates the pinwheel which is powered from a small motor. If the color of your choice stops at the image of the queen, you will get the chance to play the second level. Upon reaching that level, your next task will be to use a rubber band sling to launch a ping pong ball across an inclined cardboard surface and try to get the ball inside one of the many holes separated throughout the surface, for which you will get different points.

“Careful! You get only three attempts to score a total of 500 points and win back the queen’s stolen diamond,” Rani instructs an older gentleman as he gets his fingers entangled in the rubber band and wastes all of his three attempts to score not even a single point. Nonetheless, a generous Rani isn’t letting him go empty handed. She gives him a toffee as a consolation gift for trying out the game.

Like Rani, 20 ninth graders from Nepal Adarsha Secondary School, a public school in Ganabahal, have put up five carnival games for show in the ‘Energy Mela’ at the Innovation Hub in Teku. The mela is the final output of an eight week long Karkhana Innovators’ Club session carried out by the educational company Karkhana.

For eight weeks, the students met at the iHUB every Saturday from 8 to 11 AM, where they were introduced to different types of carnival games. Two mentors from Karkhana, Sunoj Das and Milan Dahal, simply urged them to come up with interesting story ideas that could be communicated through their own carnival games and used concepts of energy that they had learned from their Science and Math textbooks.

While working in teams, they were made to adopt a “Think, Make, Play, Improve” principle, also called the TMPI method. “The TMPI method carries the basic essence of the larger product design lifecycle management that engineers, designers and corporate companies use to develop their products. We are trying to cultivate this form of creative and critical thinking, and also risk taking in kids so that they have the edge to become innovators from a young age,” says Hasin Shakya from Karkhana.

“I would come up with one idea, and share it with my friends, who would enhance it by adding something of their own. Then we would discuss our game idea with the rest of our friends, and they would give us new suggestions to make the game even more interesting,” says thirteen year old Ujjwal Darji, whose team has put together the game.

‘Who will reach the planet and save the men’. In their game, three astronaut friends are stranded in three different planets. And as players we are to shoot paper rockets aiming at hollow circles, which act as planets, in a cardboard box planetarium. When the rocket lands inside the cavity, a small LED light brightens, indicating that we have saved our astronaut buddy.

Ujjwal explains the science behind it. “When you hit the rocket in the right planet hole, it will stimulate the aluminum foil that’s wrapped inside. That is what switches on the circuit and make the lights go up.”

Karkhana’s activities with children are solely based on “making centered education”. Here too, the 20 students refined their skills in woodworking, cardboard engineering and paper crafts to design their game structures and at the same time, they practically incorporated their understanding of different forms of energy in the working mechanism of their games.

For the kids of today, mobile apps and video games have become the standard appetite for fun and games. Karkhana’s ‘Energy Mela’ is a welcoming change in that regard because it has made kids realize that they can enjoy more by creating games of their own rather than just becoming consumers.

“While video games are addictive and they dull the minds of children, our initiative is not against video games. We are just trying to say that this is the right age for school children to involve in brain development activities. Working together to make carnival games is one such way where children enjoy the entire process as well as enhance their knowledge about their world through Science and the art of storytelling,” shares mentor Milan Dahal.

Though they are a profit making company, regularly offering sessions for school children like the ‘Make your own DIY Satellite’ – which comes with a Rs 6000 fee – at their Gyaneshwor office, Karkhana is seeking sponsors to expand its free ‘Energy Mela’ program to students of five more public schools at the Innovation Hub within the end of this year. Source: http://www.myrepublica.com/news/2129