Geek Speak: Maahir Ali

The week after the world record has been quite tiring. There’s been quite a lot of hustle bustle about the event from all corners and the team at Kidobotikz has been working at the same frenetic pace as before the event even a week after the event. There are still a few ends that have to be tied. Prizes, Certificates and Trophies are still to be dispatched to a few participants. The thing that keeps all going through the day is the joy we get from meeting kids over the weekend. It’s 5 O’clock on Saturday and I am here to meet the kids to find what they’ve been upto over the week following the World Record. I do the usual thing of waiting near the corner of the classroom and grab a student or two who’s rushing to his class after being late by a whisker.

The catch of today is an interesting extrovert. Meet Maahir Ali, the extrovert. He studies in class 8th of National Public School, Gopalapuram and immediately lights up on knowing that I did my schooling there too. Soon after his introduction, he is quite excited in sharing all the details I ask about him. He is pursuing his Advanced level here at Kidobotikz and has already notched up quite a few achievements to his name. He has already built Mopping robot, a soccer bot among others and he is just getting started. He wants to built a robot that is capable of washing dishes and he has already enrolled himself as a part of the team that is learning how to built Telepresence robots. Back at the world record he claims to have completed his ATV bot is 6 minutes and 50 seconds. He says his desire in the area of robotics is so much that he has already decided to make it his career. He wishes to pursue his B.Tech in IIT-Madras and M.Tech in Mechatronics from the same institution. He has already considered joining his JEE preparatory classes from next year. That’s a whole lot of vision from an 8th grader. I ask him what does he do in his spare time and he says he’s started reading a lot about Arduino because the applications with it are quite interesting. I ask him if he has planned anything beyond his IIT dreams and he says he wants to make a living by building Humanoid robots for daily use leaving me utterly dumbfounded. If anything, robotics does not just empower students, it makes them think in a whole  new level of holism.

Happy Roboting ! !