First Steps
Maker's Asylum Mumbai
First Steps co-created accessible solutions for elementary school kids who are underprivileged and specifically targeted the Dharavi slum students situated in Mumbai. The project is later taken ahead and showcased on a reality tv show : Inventors Challenge by Colors TV India.
Me along with a colleague of mine (Nitya) worked with Anas Shaikh and Zaberi Anseri from Dharavi. We went through the entire design process while focusing on targeting UN SDG Goal 4 : Quality Education.
I got the opportunity to introduce concepts of electronic and processing to them through Arduino and Processing. They were quite intrigued to see that we could make an LED glow at the touch of a button.
We were able to create a prototype which would allow children to create letters. When a letter was created, an LED would light up indicating that it was the correct letter. The prototype was made using bamboo and pipe-cleaners as joineries. We used flex sensors to detect the angle of the joineries and Arduino as the micro-controller. In the future we plan to add voice feedback, which would say the word that was made.
Anas and Zaberi were very proud to show the working of their prototype to everyone.
A couple years later, Colors TV India approached them to appear on their new show : The Inventor's Challenge. They got the opportunity to further collaborate with engineers and educators to take the prototype ahead.
Anas and Zaberi won the final round and got 10 lakh rupees as a prize.
Anas and Zaberi's story is highlighted well in this video.
The Colors TV website : https://www.colorsinfinity.com/theinventorchallenge/our-inventors/anas-zaberi/