Atal Tinkering Lab (ATL) at Amrita Vidyalayams (AV) at Trichy and Nagapattinam were inaugurated on 11 February and 16 March 2022, respectively. Distinguished speakers for the inauguration included Dr. Sastikumar D., Professor of Physics, National Institute of Technology (NIT) Trichy; Mr. Pradeep Chenthilkumar, Chairman, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Young Indians; Dr. Amrtha Bhide, Assistant Professor, NIT Karaikal, and Mr. Aravinth MA., Co-founder, Infinite Engineers. Mr. Ganapathy Pillai, Academic Director, Amrita Vidyalayams, Tamil Nadu & Puducherry presided over the inaugural in the presence of the ATL mentor appointed by Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), Dr. Prashant R. Nair, Vice-Chairman, IQAC & Associate Professor of Computer Science & Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore. Mrs. Usha Raghavan, Principal, AV Trichy and Mr. Jayaganapathy E., Principal, AV Nagapattinam formally welcomed the speakers.
- ATL is an initiative by Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) from the Indian government’s policy think-tank, NITI Aayog with an objective to promote a culture of grass roots innovation and entrepreneurship in India.
- 10000 Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) have been operationalized in schools across 680+ districts in India benefiting 7.5 million children.
- This state-of-the-art facility is meant for school children enrolled in schools from 6 standard to 12 standard
- The program encourages collaboration with other schools in the vicinity as well as part of the parent trust to utilize the facility
- The objective of this program is to foster curiosity, creativity, and imagination in young minds; and inculcate skills such as design mindset, computational thinking, adaptive learning, physical computing etc.
- ATL is a workspace where young minds can give shape to their ideas through hands on do-it-yourself mode; and learn innovation skills. Young children will get a chance to work with tools and equipment to understand the concepts of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) such as ‘do it yourself’ kits and equipment on – science, electronics, robotics, open-source microcontroller boards, drones, sensors and 3D printers and computers.
- ATL can conduct different activities ranging from regional and national level competitions, exhibitions, workshops on problem solving, designing and fabrication of products, lecture series etc. at periodic intervals
