In a government school in Kesarganj, a small buzzer now sounds in the staff room whenever the rooftop water tank is about to overflow. It was built by four class 9 students in the school's coding club, using a cheap sensor, a microcontroller and about 60 lines of code.
The district started coding clubs in 25 government schools last year, with volunteer mentors from local colleges and companies. Students meet twice a week after classes and work on projects that solve problems they see every day.
"We used to waste so much water," said Shreya Gupta, 14, one of the tank alarm's builders. "Now the peon hears the buzzer and switches off the pump. We measured: it saves about 1,000 litres a week."
Projects from this year
- A water-tank overflow alarm, now copied by three other schools.
- An app that shows when the school bus leaves the last stop, built with a volunteer's GPS tracker.
- A simple attendance chart that highlights students who miss many days, so teachers can follow up.
- A quiz game to practise multiplication tables in Hindi.
Mentors say the clubs teach more than programming: planning, testing, failing and trying again. Girls make up just over half of club members.
The district plans to expand the clubs to 60 schools next year and to hold an exhibition where students present their projects to parents and local officials.
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