Science and students

On last Sunday when there was no work, we as a family decided to go to Chennai Trade Centre.
What was up? Not a regular consumer exhibition. But a different one.
ACMEE - 2006 Industrial Exhibition.
The event overview said that the "focus is on the products, solutions and services in the areas of CNC machine tools, automobiles, mechanical and plant engineering, electrical engineering, electronics, information technology (IT) and software."
The words included all the branches of engineering. What else can create curiosity among parents with a son just completed 12th class and waiting to join engineering courses!
We took a bus to the centre as we were scared of a weekend traffic on the road to and beyond Kathipara.
Well designed campus with ample parking area, not seen in many of the shopping complexes in Chennai nowadays. There was an entry fee and we were allowed inside with an identity card, with our names printed on it.
For us the machines looked as though they were from Mars! But we decided to walk through the exhibition.
Simple wired mesh patterens, poultry nettings on a metal craft stall were familiar. The huge forging machines were not. The people manning the stalls with neat 'corporate uniforms' were waiting for business enquiries.
We weren't the people they were looking for. But we would have liked if someone said what those machines are used for. Just an intro to a layman.
A house hold remote control was interesting. You can switch on / off your fans and lights with a remote control which does not interfere with your TV's and AC's remote.
The battery operated stackers were displayed on the floor. Do they help in industrial stacking or stacking of goods in shopping mall or heavy books in book stalls and libraries?
Regent Biochem India P. Ltd were seen circulating a green brochure. It said they provide environmental friendlty solutions to industries in disposing of their wastes, innovative concept in industrial cleaning. A must for the changing world and what every child should learn to preserve the nature.
Electroninc weighing machines, holograms, electrical switches and plugs, we walked ahead of these displays.
The king of the exhibits was a metal cutting machine by Neotech. It operates with plasma power source. Attached to a Auto CAD machine, you can draw your designs and cut it with high precision. Not you - it is used in vessel manufacturing industries, mining & automobile manufacturing units. Everytime a visitor wondered what the machine is doing, the exhibitor, demonstrated a cut! A patient and industrious exhibitor.
At the end all that one could see was representatives from various companies grabbing brochures for their bosses to sit and read leisurely. Not many students from schools or even colleges.
But a father of two kids was trying to expalin all that he could to those curious ones.
They are strange visitors for the business people.
But they are the future science and engineering students. They are the future manufacturers and consumers of these exhibits. May be these industrial components light up an idea in their minds and they become grassroot innovators.
When so much is talked about the innovations and L-Ramp awards are being announced every year and when there is a forum for India Innovators, why not the kids be taken to such exhibitions and explained about the present facilities and future scope?
Can our city schools take their eyes away from text books and 100% results for a while and initiate such steps?
This will surely go a long way in real education of this generation.