Goa students shine at robotics contest in Mumbai

PANAJI: Students from Goa performed experiments growing amaranthus (tambdi bhaji) and mustard which would take care of the nutritional deficiencies in astronauts as well as provide them with fresh vegetables.

This was at the FIRST (For Inspiration & Recognition of Science & Technology) Lego League robotics championship held in Mumbai wherein, LegoGoa bagged the most inspirational team, teamwork-core values award and was listed in the top 10 teams.

A team with no formal robotics coaching, LegoGoa was the smallest team which consisted of only three students: Sai Pranav Gandhi, 9, a student of Sharada Mandir School, Miramar; Swayam Kakodkar, 10, from Manovikas English Medium School, Margao, and Eric Siqueira, 13, from Sharada Mandir School, Miramar.

Every year, a challenge based on a real-world scientific topic is released to the participants. This year, the challenge was on the theme ‘Into Orbit’. LegoGoa team also presented a project on growing food for space titled ‘Andromeadow, growing microgreens in space’. The project book was also presented to the director of agriculture.

“We were thinking in terms of nutrition for astronauts. Tambdi bhaji is abundant in Vitamin K, Vitamin C and calcium and all of these are deficient in modern-day astronauts. We tried various mediums to see which works in zero gravity and learnt that a cocopeat works best. Until now, NASA had grown vegetables that take about 60 days to grow but the microgreens that we have grown take about 10-12 days,” Sai Pranav said.