Bengaluru: Six boys sit quietly together at a nondescript room at the Government Telugu School in Viveknagar, when both the Bengaluru summer and erratic power supply are at their peak. This room, which doubles as a robotics lab every afternoon at 3.30 pm, houses a cluster of extraordinary talent as the boys, all of whom come from economically challenged backgrounds have come out with flying colours in two major robotics events – the Robocup Junior National Level Robotics Competition and the First Lego League 2015.
In June, they will fly out to Germany and the Philippines to represent the country at the finals of both championships. This was made possible by the Akshara Foundation’s robotics programme and Sridhar, their mentor, is in the midst of getting their passports ready. “It’s a difficult process,” he admitted. “Names and birthdays vary from department to department, so it’s a lot of work,” he said.
They call themselves the Master Minds – and are the only team comprising students from government schools to participate in the competitions, which are usually attended only by students from elite institutes across the country. Ramesh (14), whose father is a construction worker, Lawrence, the son of a domestic worker, Arvind (14), who had never showed an interest in academics until he exhibited a brilliant flair for building mechanisms and Balachandra, whose father is a car driver, make up the team of spirited students who have now travelled across the country — and abroad — thanks to their remarkable talent.
Every afternoon when the school day is done, they race off to the robotics lab, where they spend their time assembling robots, measuring and calculating speeds, distances, timings, connecting wires and devising communication protocols.
“They have done all this on their own. To be very honest, I was learning with them,” said Sridhar. “Each boy has his own strength - Lawrence and Aravind are good at creating mechanisms, Ramesh and Ramakrishna are the programmers of the group while Ameen, the youngest of the lot, has a wonderful instinct,” he added.
The robotics programme, which is being sponsored by the Lego Foundation, began about two years ago and was open to everybody interested. “We didn’t have a selection process for the final team,” said Sridhar. “The kids who found they had a deep interest in the subject stayed on.”
The electricity returns about ten minutes into the conversation and the boys perk up at once as they bring out their robot, a humanoid powered by seven motors and connected by two computers that communicate through blue tooth. “One computer can only support a maximum of four motors, which is why they had to use two. At that point, the limbs of the robot weren’t moving in sync, because the computers weren’t communicating with each other. They had to devise a new protocol, which they did.”
Their humanoid dances spiritedly across the board, first to the James Bond theme and then to a couple of regional hits as the boys watch their creation intently. “Last year, they lost out at the First Lego League because they couldn’t speak English so well, which ruined their chances during the presentation round,” said Sridhar, adding proudly, “They came back here and learned the language. This year, theirs was named the best presentation — and every word was made in English,” he added.
The boys, if all goes well, will head out to Germany and Philippines by June. Akshara Foundation is hoping crowdfunding will cover the cost of the trip.
“I am already in the process of getting their passports and visas sorted out,” said Sridhar. “It’s very hard, because they have almost no documents. The spellings of their names and their date of birth are either unrecorded or incorrect,” he added. Nevertheless, hardship doesn’t seem to have stopped them before; as they pointed out to their mentor as they boarded their first-ever flight to Delhi, “You told us that if we built a robot, we would see how it felt to fly. So here we are,” Sridhar said.
