Bangalore:
Gender stereotypes are slowly being broken down. Building robots were once considered a boy's area of expertise but that's clearly no longer the case.
Three young girls from the Canadian International School in Yelahanka showed off their skills by beating 174 other participants from across the country at the Indian Robot Olympiad last week.
After qualifying at the Indian Robot Olympiad, the girls will now head to the Philippines to compete at the World Robot Olympiad in November.
"We learnt the basics of robotics only recently and I loved that I could apply simple logic to the programming of the robot," said Ramita Kondepudi, a ninth grader from Canadian International School (CIS).
"We enrolled in the competition only for fun. We never expected to win at all. But to do better in the Philippines, we'll have to practice more."
Fifteen-year-old Jung Eun Lim, a fellow ninth grader and a South Korean, said, "When the school first introduced robotics last year, I decided to try it.
In the competition that was held in Bangalore, we had to go through a certain set of obstacles and routes." She added, "And this was the first time I even tried building a robot. We were given only 90 minutes. We never expected to win, and to do well in November, we'll have to practice harder than ever. I'm not sure we'll win because it won't be easy."
Shweta Sastri, Executive Director of CIS, said, "About 100 schools from India participated in the competition and our girls were chosen as winners. We're glad we made it."
She added, "The competition was to test their skills, and how they performed under duress. It's a surprise that we won."
The World Robot Olympiad will see participants from 32 countries that include the United Arab Emirates, Taiwan and China, among others.