The Tinkering Laboratory at IIT Roorkee was inaugurated in March 2016, by the honorable Raksha Mantri of India, Shri Manohar Parrikar. The aim of this laboratory is to serve as a platform, equipped with the state-of-the-art tools and technologies towards channelizing students’ curiosity-driven, exploratory, hands-on endeavors; in a participative, communicative and self-regulated environment; into innovative and potentially IPR-generating ideas/output, within the holistic Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate (CDIO) framework. The Tinkering Lab at IIT Roorkee aims to balance the structured knowledge transfer to students in an externally controlled environment (classroom/laboratory sessions with a fixed mandate, pre-set timeline, under the pressure of evaluation/judgement by others) with a space/platform equipped with some of the most emergent tools and technologies, that is confined by: • no curriculum: the curriculum is what an individual’s imagination allows • no rigid time regulations: accessible 12 hours a day (12 noon to 12 midnight) • no evaluation pressures: an individual is one's own judge • no regulations: just responsible behavior While the innovative and IPR-generating ideas/output from the Tinkering Lab would be an indicator of its success in the medium and long term, its success on the path of innovation, in the short term, would be gauged in terms of students’ enhanced: - Sense of purpose - Engagement with new ideas and technology - New Insights and deeper understanding - Interactions with each other, as individuals and in groups - Collaboration, facilitating multi-disciplinary perspectives and approaches
