Reviving Student Interest in Electronics. First Baby Steps.

On one hand, Government of India wants all of us to 'Make in India' and on the other, we are witness to the sorry state of engineering education in the country. You cannot Make In India unless your engineering students choose to practice in life and laboratory, what they study in classrooms. As an educator in the field of electronics engineering, I am privy to all that is going/gone wrong with our electronics engineering education with it's disdain for all things practical. You can graduate with top honours without so much as ever hold a soldering iron in your hand!

There are lot of issues. Some beyond what I can even bite. I am not evening talking about faculty quality. But. What can be done to revive student interest? Maybe give them stuff to play! Share stories of success with the soldering iron as the primary programming language! Democratize access to the building blocks of electronics!

A simple kit with lots of interesting components can be a start. Here is one that we have put together. We call it the INSPIRE kit. INSPIRE is 'Inspirational and Novel Set of Paraphernalia for Innovation in and Revival of Electronics'. Soon, I will share with you here, some pictures of a new enclosure for this kit. Also, it appears that the INSPIRE kit shares a  lot of components with TI's myParts kit.

Have fun playing with it. Adapt or modify it to your needs. And most of all, PLAY with it! May the Force be with you!