Sunaya Shirodkar speaks on her recently launched Robokits which aims at helping students to experience the practical aspects of science, technology and develop various skills.
ASIER, which means ‘the beginning’ in Spanish, is a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths) based ed-tech company which aims to foster innovations through technology and focus on the same. The company imparts practical knowledge through their first commercialized educational DIY kits ‘ROBOKITS’ which has variants in itself and through various workshops and training.
Sunaya Shirodkar, founder of this tech business, possesses a postgraduate degree in electronics and telecommunication engineering, backed with an experience of 7 years in teaching in an engineering college. She has mentored 20 BE Projects in the fields of robotics, IOT, and antenna design and has been honoured with the Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Award at the educator’s commendation ceremony for her contribution towards nation-building. Recently, she has been appointed as the ‘Mentor of Change’, at Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, Government of India; and has conducted over 50+ workshops in Robotics and IoT, training over 750+ students in the State.
Sunaya says her inspiration for business comes from a vision to make the country self-reliant in terms of skilled labour in the technological field. She aims to develop creative thinking and logical reasoning skills in the youth, who she feels are the nation builders of today
Sunaya commenced her venture, Asier Solutions almost 3 years back wherein she would conduct a session on robotics for children on weekends. As a teacher, she always felt that engineering students needed more of practical knowledge to understand concepts and thus got her venture registered last year in July. Her company has launched Robokits, a robotic kit, using which a child will be able to build different robots and will aid a child to make projects that aim at solving real world problems. Asier offers STEM learning activity kits for kids from the age of 4. These educational kits are designed to supplement the formal science and engineering lessons. They provide holistic learning which keeps a child engaged and concentrated towards science and engineering lessons. The STEM kits are fun, affordable, engaging, and designed to instill a passion for learning and creating.
“Kids can build their own robots with much functionality, using the building parts in the kit. There is a manual that comes with a detailed description about each component. There is also a QR code attached to each of the components that links them to the site which provides an explanation about each of the components/modules that they are using. A video link that can help them to understand how the module works and how they have to use it for building their robot is also present. This will help the students to learn, practice and get help at their own pace,” says Sunaya.
Moreover, these kits consist of challenge cards which will ensure that the fundamentals of robotics are learnt well by a child. Asier’s Robokits come in 3 variants from Robokit Beginners to Robokit Pro. Students can program their creations with an easy to learn approach that requires no prior experience in programming. Children will be able to strengthen their fundamentals in the field of robotics and programming.
The Robokits were launched by Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant and he spoke about how Robotics STEM (a part of National Education Policy 2020), could enhance the learning outcomes of students by integrating classroom transactions and competency based learning. He further stated that building robots will help a child to learn computational thinking and focus on solving fundamental, real world issues.
As of now, Sunaya plans to make her products a success in the Goan market and then go on to scale it on a national level. Sunaya says her inspiration for business comes from a vision to make the country self-reliant in terms of skilled labour in the technological field.
She aims to develop creative thinking and logical reasoning skills in the youth, who she feels are the nation builders of today.
Asier’s kits will be available in book stores, stationary shops and children stores.
As a mentor of change, Sunaya plans on taking demo sessions in schools all over Goa in the future
