A Curriculum for Tinkering with Electronics

Tinkering is learning by playing. Tinkering fuels the imagination and catalyses creativity – both essential life skills for the 21st century. 

So for my forthcoming workshops in April, I have designed, no curated, a Tinkering with Electronics curriculum. Curated, because I have taken project ideas from MIT Media Labs, San Francisco Exploratorium, Toys from Trash, Science Buddies, Instructables and many other sources.

Over three weeks I will be interacting with primary, middle and senior school students in rural schools in India. Grades 4 and 5 students will start Tinkering with Electronics by building BristleBots and ArtBots – simple toys, built with a vibrator motor, that dance around and can make attractive squiggly patterns. They will also learn how to use conducting dough to create 3D shapes and light these shapes up with LEDs.

Grades 6 to 8 students will learn the basics of electronics and circuits by playing with the Component Tiles (wooden blocks with different types of components mounted on them like bulbs, DC motors, LED, switches and buzzers). These students will also design Paper Circuits – interactive cards made with copper tape, LEDs and coin cells. They will then build four types of robots – a line tracking bot, a light sensing bot, a motion sensing bot and an obstacle avoiding bot, all four without using a microcontroller (a programmable chip). My plan is to also introduce them to coding using Scratch, MIT Media Lab’s free GUI programming tool that has become hugely popular.

Senior school students will learn about advance circuits using breadboards and they will build three types of robots based on the Arduino microcontroller – an obstacle-avoiding robot using an ultrasonic sensor, a line-following robot using IR sensor and a gesture-controlled robot using an accelerometer. They will also learn how to programme these robots. If time permits, we might even try an IoT (Internet of Things) project.

The idea is to start Tinkering Clubs in these rural schools that ignite students' interest in science and technology. I have observed that even in rural schools the pressure of completing the curriculum and preparing students for examinations is very high and any non-exam related activity seems like a digression from the main agenda. Hence, 21st-century life skills, like tinkering, are best introduced as the second strand in the DNA of education, the first strand being prescribed-syllabus focused education. Such an approach, I find, creates least friction to new ideas.

Creating and equipping such Tinkering with Electronics clubs is not very difficult and also not a very expensive proposition. Many online vendors in India now offer components required for tinkering and a club offering several electronics and robotics projects can be started with a budget of Rs 20,000 (£200) odd.

But there are challenges.

Finding a person who is excited about running such a club is one challenge. For many teachers, such activities like clubs are added burden with no monetary payoff. Some teachers still have the ‘sage-on-the-stage’ mindset and for them leaping into areas where they lack formal training is daunting. Still I am hopeful that we will be able to find mentors who are excited about starting such clubs with not a ‘know-it-all’ but a ‘co-explorer’ spirit. These mentors could be teachers, senior students, or local youth – someone who has the tinkerer spirit in abundance.

Another challenge is easy access to related knowledge so that when students are learning informally and in a self-directed fashion, they can course correct themselves by referring to myriad learning resources. Good news here is that there is no dearth of online guidance and information on such topics. Slightly bad news, especially for rural Indian schools, is that much of these online resources are in English. To the extent possible I plan to help club members by creating relevant web-based learning resources in Hindi and providing guidance through Whats App groups (something that I have been doing for the last couple of years).

In April, I will be accompanied by Mehul, a class 11 student from Delhi and my son Manan, a class 9 student. Following the Tinkering with Electronics curriculum, they will both be conducting their own workshops. I am hopeful that they will return charged-up and will continue contributing by adding learning resources (videos, tutorials etc) to the planned digital learning resources repository for the tinkering clubs.

I recently came across the word ‘Libratory’ – combination of laboratory and library and I think this captures the spirit of a tinkering club – a Laboratory 2.0 that focuses on emerging areas like sensors, robotics, internet of things, 3D, virtual reality… backed by digital access to online learning resources or a Library 2.0.

This combination, offered in the form of clubs, as opposed to exam-focused learning, could be the right form factor for imparting 21st-century life skills and igniting in students a passion for science.

GPS or Compass?

Formal education tends to behave like a GPS giving learners step-by-step instructions for a well-defined world. This GPS approach worked well in the 19th and 20th centuries when stockpiling knowledge in a domain, in the form of a University degree, usually assured lifelong employment because the rate of knowledge accumulation in most domains was not very high.

In the 21st century, knowledge is exploding and the terrain is changing every minute. Most employment or entrepreneurship depends on three things – muscle power, mental prowess, or dexterity. The industrial revolution led to machines replacing human muscle; today nano-machines are replacing human dexterity and artificial intelligence is replacing or augmenting human cognition. Chances are that learners today will switch several careers in their lifetime and formal education at best prepares them for their first career.

When unchartered waters lie ahead no GPS can help. Learners need an inner compass.

By inner compass, I don't mean  a moral compass but a compass that helps learners figure out for themselves how to make their lives purposeful and joyful. An inner compass helps learners stay ‘on purpose’. Peter McWilliams explains in his book Life 101, “A goal is something that can be reached. A purpose is a direction, like east. No matter how far east you travel, there's still lots more east to go. A purpose is never achieved; it is fulfilled in each moment you are on purpose."

The inner compass behaves much like the Golden Compass in Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials. It can point out the clues to the most profound life questions. It can help light the three life-valves, “To-Be, To-Do and To-Have” in that right sequence.

Having set a broad life trajectory the inner compass can help learners  figure out: What is Worth Learning? – life-worthy knowledge, timeless life skills and right dispositions (qualities of the mind) that will keep them ‘on purpose’.

An inner compass helps learners find their True North.

ACGT Life Skills

In my forthcoming workshops in April, I plan to build on the theme of 'Tinkering with Electronics' that I had started last December and introduce robotics in rural schools in India I work with. For this, earlier in January, I had ordered robotic kits from two vendors in India and purchased one here in London for evaluation. The one I bought in London was nicely packaged, with clear instructions and worked like a charm. However, it was double the cost of the Indian kits. I wrote off the first Indian kit as I was opening it because it was shoddy. As it is most students find STEM subjects daunting and using unwelcoming hardware to introduce technology would make my job significantly more challenging!

The second kit was better. During assembly, I found one component faulty and to save time I ordered that part locally in London. However, even then I could not get the kit to work. So I got in touch with the company. They arranged a Skype chat with a member of their support team, who asked me to get a multimeter and start testing the capacitors on the micro-controller board! Worse, two capacitors were shorting and this person asked me if I had a soldering iron and could I remove the solder bridge that must be shorting the capacitors. Though I am no electronics engineer I have tinkered enough so I removed the solder bridges and got the capacitors working again. However, the micro-controller board still did not work. I was told that the issue requires further investigation. This was last week and I am yet to hear from them.

I am giving a very abridged account. In reality there were delays in shipment, many emails were exchanged, assurances were given but not followed through et al. Bottom line is that in an age when Amazon has spoilt us with prompt delivery and no-fuss exchange my experience was rather unpleasant. This company is founded by alumni of the most famous technology institute in India and while my case may be an exception it left me a bit anguished that how could such a company lack quality checks and not understand the importance of customer delight. Is fostering such a spirit and mindset out-of-syllabus even in a premier technology institute?

I was reminded of the cult book ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ and felt that ‘metaphysics of quality’ and ‘gumption’ are perhaps essential dispositions which should be a part of any education.

This raised a more fundamental question: Are there any ACGT life skills that we all need to learn and hone? ACGT are of course the primary nucleobases that make the DNA and DNA is the key ingredient for life within. My question is are there any primary life skills that make up the DNA of the life we lead out in the world?

In my opinion three strands of this ‘DNA of life without’ are:

1        Self-Awareness: a deep dive within where you investigate meaning, purpose and how you can make your life joyful. Understanding the construct of your emotions and ability to rewrite the script that plays inside your head are included here.

2        Ability to take ownership of your learning: here I include curiosity, intrinsic motivation or firing up a yearning to learn, figuring out what is worth learning and then finding out ways to learn it well.

3        Ability to think independently and deeply: this includes critical, creative and the new-kid-on-the-block, computational thinking and also ability to formulate insightful questions that help you get clarity such that you can abstract and make sense of patterns to solve complex problems.

There are many other contenders for ACGT life skills like information literacy, which includes an ability to find, validate and use information in an information abundant world, or financial literacy, or empathy, or initiative… However, our investigation is about simple, primary life skills that lead to all other permutations. For example, building character is coming back in fashion in education and this includes ethics and morality. However, I believe if a person is deeply self-aware ethics and morality are not something you need to teach. They are natural ingredients needed for a life well-lived.

What we are looking for are fundamental, building-block life skills so that focus can be on imparting these well to all hues of learners. We could then rely on the property of emergence for self-directed development of other skills, competencies and dispositions, including gumption and quality mindset!

I think a discussion on ACGT life skills is much needed and would be very useful. Your thoughts and ideas are welcome.

What’s the Title of Your Life Story?

Thinking of a title of your life story can be a good exercise in catharsis. You can not only look back and think of appropriate titles for different stages of your life, you can also look forward and imagine captions for chapters that lie ahead, which will make your life more joyful and meaningful. You can then strive to live a life true to the future title of your memoirs. I did this exercise. Here are the results.

I started my career with a national daily in India and after a brief stint moved to a prestigious Chamber of Commerce and subsequently worked with two privately-held companies. Then in 2001, in Singapore, I co-founded a venture providing bespoke e-learning and knowledge management solutions. I don't have a MBA and I had no experience with large corporates so this bold decision to quit a well-paying job and take an entrepreneurial plunge I caption, ‘Playing Without Pedigree’.

My son was also born in 2001 and the alternate title of this stage of my life could well be titled, ‘Chasing Clients, Changing Nappies – How to Successfully Juggle Two Start-Ups!’. After initial hiccups the e-learning venture was fairly successful and an apt sequel to ‘Playing without Pedigree’ could be, ‘Market was my Litmus’.

By the way, my other start-up is not doing too bad either and the headline here is, ‘Empower, Role Model. Then Let Him Be’. 

After about a decade of managing my e-learning company a chance visit to a remote village in the Himalayas, where I got to interact with teachers in small, rural schools and on an impulse got a few students to make short videos using my smart-phone, I got enamoured with the idea of providing 21st century life skills to under-privileged children. Gradually I got sucked in and started spending more and more of my time pondering what are the most relevant ‘horizontal’ skills like learning to self-learn and learning to think, that are essential for success in the fast changing 21st century, in addition to the conventional ‘vertical’ competencies like expertise in a particular domain.

As I started investing much of my time and resources shaping this informal, not-for-profit initiative friends would admonishingly ask, “How are you going to scale? What is the business model?” Only half in jest I would retort that I have a very unique business model. A business model that doesn’t even feature in the best-selling book ‘Business Model Generation’. It is called ‘she earns - he burns, but wisely’ and for the model to succeed you have to be married to a successful banker, who is better than you are (i.e. she can earn faster than you can burn)!

Three years back I got introduced to Isha yoga and was instantly hooked. With me doing yoga and dabbling in philanthropy based on ‘she earns he burns’ model, this chapter of my life is best described as, ‘Yogi and the Banker’. However, I have had to revise this caption as earlier this year my wife switched careers and she now works for a large mining company. The new title of my current life phase reads, ‘I Mine Within, She Mines Without’.

Straddling the worlds of for-profit, not-for-profit, job, entrepreneurship and philanthropy what I have come to realise is that the secret to joyful aliveness is living your life with absolute exuberance, no matter what your pursuit. As I move to full-time philanthropy, along with a deeper dive into yoga, the title of the next stage of my life is, ‘Ascetic in Exuberant Action’. 

An eminent educationist who knows me well, some years back prognosticated that my life may well be summed up as, “Entrepreneur at 30, Philanthropist at 50, Philospher at 70”. To whatever degree, first stage – check, second – on track and two decades and a bit hence, given the heady mix of philanthropy and yoga, the title of this part of my biopic may well be, ‘For Me, the Cave’ (who knows real or virtual)!

Thinking of apt titles for different stages of your life, past, present and future, can be a great exercise in connecting the dots, sense-making and figuring out where you want to go. Give it a shot.