Creative kids shine bright at Nakshatra competition

Karthik K a class 7 student is happy because his best friend was one of the winners of the art competition. While the friend collects the prize, Karthik’s cheers are the loudest. For many of these kids who come from various shelter homes, this event is something they look forward for and they spend days practicing. It’s just not about winning, but also supporting each other in the competition. 

Life has not been kind to many of these children but they have each other and this event was a testimony to that. The students got chance to participate in various events including group dance, painting, ad zap, zone defence, quiz and many more. 

S Sasikala of Children’s Home of Hope in Maduravoyal, who took part in ad zap says, “We have competitions in school but this one is on a larger scale and I prepared hard. I asked my friends to guess the products I was enacting and vice-versa. I was keen on winning this.” 

One of the highlights of the day was the display of the robotic creations by the students, based on the theme Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Over 80 children from four centres were recycling waste, creating components and building their own robots. Out of the 19 exhibits, the one by ‘Gethu Girls’, from Avvai Home and Orphanage, caught the attention of many. They created a robot that had sonar sensors that could move around a fenced route. The robot did not collide with anything. “We also have automatic headlights. It automatically lights up when it enters a tunnel and shuts down when the vehicle sees light,” says Krishnakanth B, a volunteer with Bhumi, who helped the students make their robot. “We started preparing three months earlier We’d train them every weekend and a month before the event, we started putting together the model,” he adds. 

Dr Prahalathan KK, founder of Bhumi, says., “This time we had zonal competitions where homes from other cities. The winners of the zonals came here to participate in the grand event. This couldn’t have been possible without our volunteers who managed the show.”