Live Session of Igniting Minds with Dr. Prahlad Vadakkepat

The first live interactive session of the Igniting Minds program was conducted on November 16, 2013 in MPH from 2:00 pm - 4:05 pm. A total of 46 students from our school participated in the same. Dr. Prahlad Vadakkepat from the National University of Singapore took an interesting session on the topic Robotics. He is adept in Robotics from National University of Singapore and is the founder secretary of the Federation of International Robot - Soccer Association and its General Secretary. He is one of the resource persons in the Igniting Minds movement by Vijnana Bharathi India which is a programme enabling students to shed conventions and think out of the box.

The program started with our national song Vande Mataram. After a brief introduction about Dr. Vadakkepat from the anchor, Dr. Vadakkepat spoke about the importance of research and emphasized on the need of more and more students opting for research as a career option. 

   

 He showed a documentary on what actually a Robot is. Children were excited to see robots of different forms dancing, playing soccer, walking on the grass and doing ice skating. He also explained the main components of a robot through a PowerPoint presentation and videos. Children listened to him curiously as he explained what subjects the students need to study to become a roboticist. He also explained how robots are being used in different industries for the betterment of the people.

 This interesting and informative session was followed by an interactive session. The questions from students across India ranged from what are humanoid robots to robotics used in the Mars mission, which Dr. Vadakkepat was very happy to answer.

 The audio and video connectivity was great during the session. Kudos to the whole Igniting Minds team for organising such an engaging session and Ms. Shveta P for coordinating the sessions for the Newton Campus!