SASTRA Deemed to be University in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu is stays actively involved in various social and community development projects for the betterment and upliftment of people from differently challenged environments.
In continuation of its vision and mission "progress through quality education," SASTRA proudly announced the creation of 'SASTRA-CNR Rao Labs' in honour of Bharat Ratna Prof CNR Rao's visit to their campus and to celebrate his 80th birthday.
In the beginning, SASTRA committed to establish this lab facility in 10 schools at a cost of Rs 5 lakhs each, and has now announced a list of 10 select schools for this set up of 'SASTRA-CNR Rao Labs' in rural and urban schools across Tamil Nadu.
SASTRA Deemed University has launched the SASTRA-CNR Rao Lab initiative to set up school laboratory facilities with DIY kits on robotics, IoT, 3D printing, AI and Drones to strengthen the science and technology-based learning at the school level. As part of this initiative, SASTRA had called for competitive proposal submission from all over Tamil Nadu (public and private schools) and advised to a detailed presentation on the lab's objective, outcome, and need of this technology.
More than a hundred schools submitted their proposals from which 25 schools were shortlisted for interaction and presentation on the above DIY kits and their school's vision on STEM.
The shortlisted schools made their presentation on their project proposal at SASTRA Thanjavur campus on February 28 and March 8. From the 25 shortlisted participant schools, ten schools were selected based on their objective and outcome of this laboratory set up in their respective schools.
The shortlisted schools were Adhyapana School, Madurai, Swami Dayananda School, Manjakudi, Chinmaya Vidyalaya Matric, Trichy, Govt Model Girls Hr Sec School, Manachanallur, Trichy, Sri Matha, Matric Hr Sec School, Kumbakonam, PSBB KKN, Chennai, Akshaya Academy, Coimbatore, PS Senior Sec School, Chennai, Gurukulam Matric and Sitadevi Garodia Hindu Vidyalaya, Chengalpet.
Schools have been selected from rural and urban areas based on the requirement and interest level of the teachers and management to utilize this new laboratory for students from standard 6 to 12. Few schools opted to use this lab up to standard 9 by adopting this in the working hours and others opted it as special course but as compulsory for learning and experiencing the lab.