Toys from trash
Arvind Gupta folds a sheet of paper to the right and then to the left, and comes up with a design that shows the rhombus, diagonals, and the mathematical rules hidden within it.
For the Padma Shri awardee and educator, the tetra packs, toothpaste tubes, matchboxes, and every other object we label trash are treasures that can ignite the spark of curiosity and scientific temper in young minds. For more than four decades, he has been converting everyday trash into magical toys for children. It is his way of making science interesting and accessible to every child in India and beyond, he says.
After graduating from IIT Kanpur, Gupta started working at TELCO where he found the monotonous work in the mass production line suffocating . He took a break and went to work at the Hoshangabad Science teaching program and later worked with architect Laurie Baker.
Travelling across India, writing books, 24 so far, and posting tutorial videos on YouTube, he says, it is his calling to ensure books and toys are easily accessible to children and tutors anywhere.
'Children from poor backgrounds do not have access to expensive materials like glassware, burettes, pipettes; it made me think about toys for them,' says Gupta, who was at the Ashoka University recently for the Lodha Genius program, an initiative that brings together children between 14 and 17 years for guidance in science and technology by eminent people.
Over 12 crore children have watched Gupta's videos available in Tamil, Punjabi, Telugu, Hindi, and English. It has helped to create an inclusive space for children, parents, and tutors.
Gupta believes toys are meant to be brokenby kids. 'A good toy design is one that .can be dissembled and rearranged to its original form,' he says. He recalls his childhood when his mother let him be and he began collecting cigarette packets, bottle caps, and matchboxes for experiments.
Affordability and environment protection are the two key factors that motivate him to make toys from trash. Instead of using high-end materials for teaching children, he uses plastic bottles to showcase hundreds of experiments and instills a sense of environmental sensibility in them.
A cancer survivor, Gupta spends time travelling across the country to spread knowledge and translating his own books and those by others on science experiments, biographies of scientists, children's literature into Hindi and Marathi. A recipient of 22 awards, Gupta says when a child learns something new, the gleam in their eyes gives him most satisfaction.
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Indian Express
43 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Stories in Kutch shells: Hunter-gatherers who lived in Gujarat 5,000 years before the Harappans and their cities
Researchers at Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) who worked with experts from IIT Kanpur (IITK), Inter University Accelerator Centre (IUAC) Delhi, and Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) Ahmedabad, have reported the presence of humans in the Great Rann of Kutch at least 5,000 years before the Harappans. The conclusion is based on the dating and analysis of remains of shells that were first discovered in the late 19th century. The Anglo-Irish geologist Arthur Beavor Wynne wrote in the Geological Survey of India (GSI) memoirs in 1872 about 'a patch of large broken univalve shells' found 'all over the northern side of Kutch'. The IITGN study suggests links between the Kutch midden site – archaeological sites where large quantities of marine shells, along with bones, tools, and pottery are typically found – and those in Oman and Pakistan along the coast of the northern Arabian Sea where these pre-Harappan communities likely lived. Preliminary results were published in 2023 in Man and Environment, the biannual journal of the Indian Society for Prehistoric and Quaternary Studies ('Evidence for the presence of prehistoric hunter-gatherer communities on Khadir island, Great Rann of Kutch, Gujarat'). A new set of archaeological remains was discovered about a kilometre from the Harappan site of Dholavira near Bambhanka, the southernmost village on Khadir Beyt (island), on the route connecting the island to the Kutch mainland. Khadir was one of the six islands in this region, where sea levels were higher until about 5,000-6,000 years ago, V N Prabhakar, associate professor at the Department of Earth Sciences and Humanities and Social Sciences at IITGN, said. During a visit to the site in 2016, study co-author Shikha Rai and Vikrant Jain, professor at IITGN's Department of Earth Sciences, discovered the 'remains of house complexes' on a hillock 2.5 km to the northwest of Bambhanka. 'The surface had broken potsherds, shell remains, and flakes of carnelian and agate, while on the surface were remnants of walls built with random rubble masonry,' Dr Rai told The Indian Express. On the western edge of this hillock, a trench dug to lay a pipeline exposed a 30-40-cm-thick deposit of shell remains. 'Most of the shell remains display breakage on the central part, presumably to extract meat from them. Similar findings from the Las Bela region of Pakistan are placed between the seventh and fifth millennium BCE, which suggests the possibility of hunter-gatherer communities depending on shell remains as a food source and participating in long distance trade within inland sites,' Dr Rai said. More similar sites were subsequently discovered in and around Khadir. Clues in the mangroves The study indicates the presence of coastal hunter-gatherer communities in the Great Rann of Kutch region who adapted to the mangrove environment to which the shell species identified so far – such as Terebralia palustris, or the giant mangrove whelk – belong. 'Most sites are on river banks, some 2-2.5 km from the coast, while some are deeper inside, which suggests the inhabitants carried the sea shells inland. We could not reach the northern coast, which is a forest area, but there may be more deposits there,' Prof Prabhakar said. Currently, the only remnants of mangroves are found in the Little Rann of Kutch to the southeast of Dholavira, near Lakhpat on the coast to the west, and at an inland location known as Shravan Kavadiya to the northeast of Bhuj, which may have been the ancient shoreline. 'These humans were collecting food wherever it was available in their mangrove environment. They broke the shells and extracted the meat, which they may have even cooked – because some shells are black or grey in colour, suggesting they were heated. The shells may have been discarded at the same place for perhaps 300-400 years,' Prof Prabhakar said. These communities of humans were hunter-gatherers, not farmers, he said. 'Apart from shells, they could have consumed plants, fruits, tubers, or nuts. But there isn't enough evidence yet… Maybe if we excavate one site, we can study the soil samples and try to understand the flora of that time.' Stone tools and trade The presence of flakes at several sites like Laungwali, Kunduwari, Ganeshpar, and Janan on Khadir island suggest the use of tools by these people. 'After the discovery at Bambhanka, local people led us to the site of Lungwali, about 1 km from Dholavira, where similar remains along with stone tools were discovered. A good number of chert, jasper, and chalcedony cores were found,' Prof Prabhakar said. According to Prof Prabhakar, these hunter-gatherer communities would have used tools made of basalt, limestone, and quartzite to hunt. Some smaller stones that have been found could have served as tips of arrows. 'They may have occupied a site maybe for one season, and moved on to another location, and then to another. Had there been permanent occupation, we could have found other remains as well,' he said. Barring agate, which was available near Amarapar village in Kutch, the other stones are not available locally, which suggests the possibility of trade, according to investigators. The finding from Kutch tallies with evidence from the Karachi coast, Prof Prabhakar said. 'We think that the Oman evidence is also coinciding. There was a wider area, and people definitely could have communicated with each other. Maybe in the future, if we have more evidence we can establish this,' he said. Before the Harappan people Fifteen samples from Khadir island have been carbon dated so far. The first three samples – all from Bambhanka – were dated at PRL Ahmedabad, and the remaining 12 at IUAC Delhi. Ravi Bhushan, a former professor at PRL who is now a consultant at the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), Goa, said: 'Radiocarbon dating, which is one of the most powerful tools scientists use to determine the age of ancient artifacts, fossils, and archaeological sites, was used. However, there is a time lag of 400-500 years as these shells feed on dead carbonates… this means they could be a little older.' Carbon dating pegs the antiquity of the Dholavira site at 3,300 BC to 1,400 BCE. The Harappan period is generally considered to extend from 2,600 to 1,900 BCE. 'Both before and after the Harappans, there were people living in smaller settlements in this area. But these remains are 5,500-5000 years before the time of the Harappans,' Dr Rai said. Ten more samples from four sites on Khadir, Bela, and the Kutch mainland will be dated at IUAC Delhi soon. Thereafter, more studies will be carried out with the collaboration of IIT Kanpur.
The Hindu
6 hours ago
- The Hindu
Toys from trash
Arvind Gupta folds a sheet of paper to the right and then to the left, and comes up with a design that shows the rhombus, diagonals, and the mathematical rules hidden within it. For the Padma Shri awardee and educator, the tetra packs, toothpaste tubes, matchboxes, and every other object we label trash are treasures that can ignite the spark of curiosity and scientific temper in young minds. For more than four decades, he has been converting everyday trash into magical toys for children. It is his way of making science interesting and accessible to every child in India and beyond, he says. After graduating from IIT Kanpur, Gupta started working at TELCO where he found the monotonous work in the mass production line suffocating . He took a break and went to work at the Hoshangabad Science teaching program and later worked with architect Laurie Baker. Travelling across India, writing books, 24 so far, and posting tutorial videos on YouTube, he says, it is his calling to ensure books and toys are easily accessible to children and tutors anywhere. 'Children from poor backgrounds do not have access to expensive materials like glassware, burettes, pipettes; it made me think about toys for them,' says Gupta, who was at the Ashoka University recently for the Lodha Genius program, an initiative that brings together children between 14 and 17 years for guidance in science and technology by eminent people. Over 12 crore children have watched Gupta's videos available in Tamil, Punjabi, Telugu, Hindi, and English. It has helped to create an inclusive space for children, parents, and tutors. Gupta believes toys are meant to be brokenby kids. 'A good toy design is one that .can be dissembled and rearranged to its original form,' he says. He recalls his childhood when his mother let him be and he began collecting cigarette packets, bottle caps, and matchboxes for experiments. Affordability and environment protection are the two key factors that motivate him to make toys from trash. Instead of using high-end materials for teaching children, he uses plastic bottles to showcase hundreds of experiments and instills a sense of environmental sensibility in them. A cancer survivor, Gupta spends time travelling across the country to spread knowledge and translating his own books and those by others on science experiments, biographies of scientists, children's literature into Hindi and Marathi. A recipient of 22 awards, Gupta says when a child learns something new, the gleam in their eyes gives him most satisfaction.
Time of India
10 hours ago
- Time of India
Oldest engg school in country to conduct open house for aspirants
Chennai: Survey School, the oldest engineering school established outside Europe, in Madras in 1794 to produce trained personnel in surveying for British India, has turned into a premier College of Engineering (CEG), Guindy. It took British engineers, their surveyors, ameens, and draftsmen 50 years to complete the first survey of India in 1852. With satellite images and modern equipment, the same can be completed within a year with much better accuracy today. It all started with survey engineering. Now, the college is producing top-notch engineers in multiple disciplines. The department of civil engineering, one of the first departments to be established in the college roughly 166 years ago, has become one of the premier departments of the discipline. "Our department will host a first-ever open house on Monday to showcase innovations, research outcomes, and project demonstrations by students and faculty members," said S Kanmani, head, department of civil engineering, CEG. It is open to industry professionals, researchers, alumni, school children, and the public to see cutting-edge laboratories, interact with researchers, and witness live demonstrations. "The event will also have interactive exhibits, student-led models, and solutions to real-world infrastructure and sustainability challenges," she added. This exercise is being conducted to promote its UG and PG programmes. The department is offering BE civil engineering in Tamil and English and BE in geo-informatics. It also offers 11 PG courses. The students trained in live projects are working for various govt departments and agencies, including NASA and ISRO. "Three students from the BE geo-informatics course – Latha Malar Baskaran, Suresh Vannan, and G G Ponnurangam are working in NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory as scientists. One of them was involved in the project that brought Astronaut Sunita Williams," said R Vidhya, director of Institute of Remote Sensing, another centre of the civil engineering department. "All faculty members in the civil engineering department are experts in their domains. They do research and consultancy for various govt agencies. So, UG and PG students joining this department can branch out to any section of civil engineering and work on live projects as well," said R Saravanan, director, Centre for Water Resources, also part of the civil engineering department at CEG. "Any building structure-related issue, be it Mugalivakkam or Tirvottiyur, our faculty members are part of the expert team. Due to these consultancy services, we are generating 80% of consultancy revenue for Anna University," said professor K P Jaya, head, structural engineering division, department of civil engineering. "It's one of the largest departments and occupies 60% of the total area in the CEG," she added. About 50% of total students are placed in campus placements, while 30% opt to write competitive exams. "The remaining 20% of students are interested in pursuing higher studies," Kanmani said. Some of the PG courses, such as structural engineering, have 100% placements. "ME in soil mechanics and foundation engineering course started at CEG in 1958, much before the IITs," said professor M Muttharam from the soil mechanics and foundation division.
