A dozen shining stars of the co-ed, CBSE-affiliated Lakshmipat Singhania Academy, Kolkata (LSA, estb.1996), a K-12 day school (ranked #14 in the latest EW India School Rankings in the city of joy), won the 20 Settlement Design Competition of the Johnson Space Centre, Houston, Texas, held between August 2-5. Earlier in February, the LSA team won the first prize in the Asia preliminary held at Manesar, Haryana, under the guidance of their teacher Subroto Chakraborty.
The school’s ‘outer space shining dozen’ comprised nine boys — Pulkit Parolia, Devansh Agarwal, Yashwant Kedia, Pronil Roy, Yash Mehta, Yash Manpuria, Yashwardhan Nevatia, Vibhor Sharma, Amitabh Agrawal — and three girls viz, Manshi Sanghai, Darshika Agarwal, and Vatsal Mohta. In Houston, they were included in Team Grumbo Aerospace comprising students of Edgewater High School (Orlando, USA), Princess Margaret High School (Vanco-uver, Canada), Cardiff Sixth Form School (UK) and the Johnson Space Centre Team (Texas, USA). Team Grumbo Aerospace was one of four ‘companies’ consisting of school teams from India, Pakistan, USA, Australia, Wales, Arg-entina, Romania, China, and Uruguay. Each company had 48 students aggreg-ating a total of 192 participants in this annual global competition.
The International Space Settlement Design Competition, supported by America’s pioneer National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), required each company to design a human colony in space, in different locations, with different scenarios.
To qualify for the finals in Houston, two schools had to win the Asia Round to represent Asia. “Our company comprised two teams from Pakistan, a team from China and LSA. We won because of innovative solutions, addres-sing the key issues of water production in space, and methods of ensuring a constant supply of solar power. In the Asia Round, we were given 22 hours to complete the propo-sal, and in the Houston Inter-national, we worked the entire 45 hours in shifts,” enthuses team member Amitabh Agrawal.
“The magnitude of the competition, and the chance to work cooperatively with schools from Asia, if not the entire world, was hugely motivating,” adds Pronil Roy.
From among the shining dozen, Devansh Agarwal is studying aero-space engineering at Georgia Tech, USA, and Pulkit Parolia is pursuing the aerospace engineering degree programme of Purdue University. The rest are class XII students of LSA, who intend studying and researching space and other sciences.
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)
Bhanu Prakash
“Maths competitions are number games. If you abide by the rules of numerical logic, you win,” says Jonnalagadda Neelakantha Bhanu Prakash (13), a class X student of the co-ed Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Public School (estb. 1979), Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad and winner of the Malaysia based SIP International’s Abacus Competition 2013, staged in Singapore on September 29. Over 800 international students participated in the day long competition.
Quite clearly Bhanu Prakash has mastered the rules of cryptic maths games and competitions. In June, the Limca Book of Records (India’s version of the Guinness World Records) listed him for breaking seven records in three categories of mental maths. Also the national champion of competitions conducted by SIP in Bangalore (2011) and Pune 2012, Bhanu Prakash trained at the SIP Academy, Hyderabad.
The Chennai-based SIP Academy Pvt. Ltd (estb. 2003), which offers skills training for the mental development of children in the age group five-15, has franchised centres in 19 states with an aggregate enrollment of 45,000 students. Its focus is on rigorous mental maths training to solve calculus prob-lems quickly and without use of pen and paper.
“Solving maths puzzles, problems and equations is my passion and recr-eation. I often create my own problems, and solve them in different ways. I find mathematics very challenging and fascinating,” says Bhanu Prakash. Encouraged by his father J. Srinivas who runs a food processing business in Hyderabad, and mother J. Hema Shiva Parvathi, a homemaker, he is also motivated and assisted by his sister, Manonmani. And not surprisingly, Srinivasa Ramanujan and Stephen Hawking are the role models of this young maths prodigy, who intends to make a career in astrophysics.
However, Bhanu Prakash is far from being a typical nerd. Interested in classical and western music, he is an avid reader of space science fiction and Greek and Roman mythology. He also loves to debate current affairs. “I’m fortunate that I receive as much encouragement in developing my mental maths capabilities in school as I do at home. Now I’m working on a set of mental maths problems which could be recognised by Guinness World Records,” says Bhanu Prakash.
Wind in your sails!
Aruna Ravikumar (Hyderabad)