Join us in a journey of exploring non-intuitive toys and machines, some of which have had profound impact on our lives like the Enigma Machine, and some of which are apparently simple but involve complex principles. We will focus on exploring the mysteries behind these toys and some intriguing unresolved questions like the stability of a bicycle.
Center For Creative Learning (CCL) at IIT Gandhinagar focuses on hands-on experimental STEM education through toys and models and will share interesting models such as Enigma machine (probably the only lab in India to have made one), Einstein Clock, Lichtenberg figures, BLDC’s, wave-drawing cars, mathematical art and portraits, strobes, tippe tops etc. CCL has developed and curated about 700 toys and models, worked with thousands of teachers and students, created STEM kits, and produced online programs with over 5L registered users.
About the Speakers:
Manish Jain
Manish spends most of his time investigating the science behind simple (and complex) toys and is passionate about sharing his insights and excitement with people. He is a Teaching Professor at IIT Gandhinagar, and heads CCL whose goal is to bring back the gleam in the eyes of students and children. Before founding CCL, Manish worked at IUCAA’s Science Centre in Pune with Arvind Gupta (fellow IITK alum and a Padma Shri awardee). In his previous avatar, he spent 19 years in the area of chip design at Synopsys (Bangalore & Mountain View), serving as a Director R&D. Manish has a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur (1993) and has also finished a few courses at Stanford University.
Jyothi Krishnan
Jyothi grew up solving puzzles and reading Martin Gardner’s books. Not realising that recreational mathematics provided any scope for a career, she pursued her other love of mechanics and collected a BTech from NIT Calicut, an MS from IIT Madras and a PhD from UC Berkeley. She has worked as a programmer, a bridge engineer, a research mathematician and a school teacher. Having been introduced to the world of modern board games during her PhD, she realised that it was a way to make fairly complicated mathematical reasoning accessible to a large number of children so she created a job playing games with kids in an alternative school in Bangalore. After running her game lab for 4 years she discovered like-minded people at CCL where she is thrilled to be making a living playing games and solving puzzles. At CCL she creates games and looks after math content.
Ashutosh Bhakuni
Ashutosh did his Computer Engineering BTech from G B Pant University Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, and his Master's in Social Entrepreneurship from TISS Mumbai. During his Masters, he undertook a community project in a remote village in Almora district Uttarakhand where he ran an after-school learning centre for children. After graduation, he worked as a Resource Person for Outreach and as a teacher at Brilliant Stars School, Tripura. He then worked as a Science Content Developer and trainer at Pratham Education Foundation. He has also independently conducted several Science workshops for children and loves aeromodelling. At CCL he explores interesting toys and activities in Physics and facilitates teacher workshops.
Eligibility:
Children from 5th to 12th standard
Register here.
We acknowledge with thanks the support of Dr. Mukunda Krishnaswamy for this activity