Based in Sirsi, Karnataka, Akshay Mashelkar is the creator of Shiksha, a teaching robot. Up until class four, it can teach students names of shapes, rhymes, and the days of the week, among many other things.
Shiksha, the humanoid robot, appears to be a schoolchild as she instructs the pupils at a rural government school in Sirsi, Karnataka, while wearing a blue school uniform, her hair wrapped in two plaits, and an ID card around her neck.
The children are unable to look away from the robot as they repeat the days of the week after her, unable to move from their awe. Shiksha interacts with the class and instructs them in a variety of subjects.
Students engage with her and repeat what she teaches because of its look and participatory teaching approach, which improves their comprehension and internalization of the material.
Shiksha is a teaching tool that makes learning new things engaging and enjoyable. I want to demonstrate through this robot the transformative power of technology in education,” Mashelkar tells SocialStory. The moment Shiksha was born
Following in his mother’s footsteps, Mashelkar became a professor after completing his postgraduate studies in physics with a focus on electronics. Despite significant technical developments, he believed that government schools in rural areas lacked interactive teaching resources while he was employed in the education sector.
With the exception of a few minor adjustments and new equipment like projectors and smartboards, the process of information transmission has remained consistent.
But technology is far more expansive, and we must use that knowledge to develop better teaching resources, Mashelkar argues.
He observed a significant learning gap among kids following the initial COVID-19 pandemic. Following that lead, he spent his leisure time during the second wave researching and creating new interactive teaching resources to help kids enjoy and be engaged in the learning process.
In a tiny makeup room at an art center, he established his own research institute, the Vikram Sarabhai Educational Research Centre, with the goal of integrating technology into the field of education.
His study was centered on the integration of art and technology in the classroom. At the start of 2022, Mashelkar created Shiksha following eight months of intensive research.
He spent between Rs 40,000 and Rs 45,000 on the robot’s research and development using his savings and the funds he obtained from other independent research projects. Eight to ten of his classmates offered to assist him in building the robot.
Shiksha, the robot The robot Shiksha is capable of teaching a wide range of subjects, including English and Kannada rhymes, the days of the week, shape names, English alphabets, and even multiplication tables. Handling the robot is simple. It must be started by the user pressing a button, and then a Mastercard containing the necessary data must be inserted into its right hand.
Every subject has a different master card. The robot can currently teach up to class 4. Mashelkar intends to alter it so that it can be utilized in higher classes. Shiksha’s drawback is that it isn’t real-time, so unlike other AI systems like Siri or Alexa, it can’t react to instructions or questions.
Mashelkar claimed that this restriction was deliberate. Mashelkar wanted to make sure Shiksha wasn’t abused or diverted by other activities because it was created especially for educational objectives.
He asserts that since this instrument is being used to instruct young children, there must be some informational limitations. Mashelkar has now visited over 25 schools in the Sirsi area, all of which are eager to include Shiksha into their curricula. Mashelkar has covered the Rs 35,000 manufacture cost of the robot. He has given the schools free access to the demos.
