Sunday 1/10/2016 - Finally Some Rest

              Now at the halfway point in our trip the team is appreciating some much needed rest on our first Sunday while here at Agastya. Over the last week we have had some tremendous experiences and achieved a lot working towards our goals with the Brightbox. Over the course of the last week we have made some new friends amongst the Agastya staff, learned a huge amount about the Indian education system and enjoyed some fantastic food.

              Our week began with a tour of the fantastic campus here and we sat in on two different classes. Simply walking around campus it becomes quickly apparent how they do things differently. We walked through some incredible exhibits that kids could interact with. One of our personal favorites was the replica ship’s bridge built out of a recycled ship. We also got to visit a community in the evening and spend some time with some local kids which was a great experience to start the week off with. The next day was also very exciting as we had an opportunity to test our curriculum and the Brightbox in a classroom. After this the week started to form a pattern of developing the curriculum and working with the Agastya staff on their feedback on the Brightbox. Once Mary and Makhimba arrived we began working on our second prototype taking into account all of the changes we learned from our testing and feedback and we are very proud of the direction the box is taking and the kids always seem to love it. The smiling in the room during the lesson is definitely contagious. 

              The week also has not been without its challenges. We have had a couple of power outages here so our lessons learned from the electricity challenge are being put to good use, In fact the power is out as I am writing this! In addition to that we have struggled with the language barrier working with Naresh in the workshop and other Agastya staff but thankfully Subbash has been an excellent translator throughout the trip.  We have achieved a lot in the last few days developing the curriculum and brainstorming new ideas and we feel proud and excited for where the project is going not just at the end of our trip but into next semester. The feedback here has almost all been positive towards the box and the smiles of the kids keep us going through the long days of work.