Image makeover: Engineers create experiences to help students fall in love with engineering

Recognising this, three friends from Chennai: — MC Jaikanth, Harish Srinivasan and Aravind MA — who pursued their degrees with genuine interest, gave up the chance to accept high-paying corporate jobs and instead begin an initiative that would breed more passionate engineers in Tamil Nadu – right from the school level.

Hence was born Infinite Engineers, a project dedicated to educate budding scientists at school level. The engineers from multidisciplinary streams design the learning experiences to inculcate the concept of hands-on learning and also provide an interactive platform — to inspire more school-goers across TN, and stop existing engineering students from dropping out after joining the courses blindly.

Harish, one of the co-founders, said, “We are all batchmates from Rajalakshmi College of Engineering, who went through the engineering system and got very little practical experience. During our final year of college, we started approaching government as well as private schools to see if our pilot program would work out. Today, we have worked all over Tami Nadu, Kerala, and have our presence in Singapore as well.”

Infinite Engineers operates in two streams: the first, via their innovation called Dexter Box, that hosts a number of science experiments mapped to the school curriculum, across a series of education boards. They are then sent to schools to be presented during science classes, as an add-on to the lessons. “In government schools, we take teacher training programs as well, to ensure the boxes are used efficiently,” Harish added.

Their other form of modus operandi is via Dexter Zones – experiential zones set up all over Chennai, that offers a wholesome scientific learning experience to students using concepts of science, engineering, technology, etc in an interactive manner. 

“There is a community of parents who also attend these workshops as well as after-school programmes,” the trio said. They have also set up Atal Tinkering Labs and mentor students in the areas of innovation.