All-girl garage
Girls of Gothami Balika Maha Vidyalaya stand alongside their creation. Pic by Indika Handuwala
Peering through the heads of school girls in single file, eagerly leaning into the marquees that shaded exhibits from the unforgiving glare, ‘Wizen 2014’ by the Technology Society of Gothami Balika Maha Vidyalaya was a seemingly ordinary school fair.
Laid out on a table next to what seemed like an interesting life-sized model, a miniature skeleton of a car with functioning engineering seemed right at home among the school’s ‘Technical Day’ exhibits. It wasn’t until a staff member hopped in, started the engine and put the life -sized model in gear that you realise the miniature chassis was in fact the model showing how their actual project- a car constructed entirely by the girls of Gothami Balika Maha Vidyalaya functioned.
The quizzical wagon-meets-tractor creation is what the eight girls, Gayesha Gimhani, Sakura Gunasekera, Thakshila Dilrukshi, Sasuni Tharuka, Chathuri Dilrukshi, Ashani Mathsarani, Krishala Kaushini and Thanya Ranasinghe taking technology as an A/Level subject have to show for four months of hard work. “It’s a new subject, and we are the first batch hoping to sit the paper from our school,” Thanya Ranasinghe says. Knowing that the Technology Society, of which she is an office bearer, was to hold an exhibition she feels the whole class was unanimous in their decision of what they would show. “We really liked the idea of making a car,” she smiles “Generally we know only boys do this sort of thing.” Since most of the examples teachers quote for the engineering technology component comes from the automobile world she shares that as much as it was fun, it was a learning experience-“sort of like a practical lesson.”
A good chunk of the four months was soaked-up by copious amounts of planning she tells us, and while everything in the car is completely hand-crafted the engine is from an old 1986 Mercedes Benz. “A friend’s father had it in a car that was no longer in usable condition.” Packing a punch with a revamped engine and cut-up container floorboards the girls worked on the project whenever they possibly could, after school hours and even holidays have been dutifully surrendered by the entire class.
However, piecing the car together did have a few bumps in the road she admits, “We had to drive it after each little adjustment.” A failure would send the team scurrying back to the drawing board with renewed eagerness to get it right. Convinced that they could in fact mange alone, even welding the giant metal puzzle together was with minimal help from a parent. Feeling that the instruction the girls got from the Vocational Training Authority’s liaisons in Narahenpita and their supportive teachers was invaluable, according to Thanya the girls are grateful that regardless of the occasional road block, they were encouraged to continue.
For yet another member of the team, Sasuni Tharuka it has been a childhood dream to be an engineer. Never thinking she would get a full taste of it as early as in her A/Level years she says “I never event dreamed I would be studying a subject called Technology for A-Ls.” Enjoying working on a project with her friends she feels the unity they shared made learning a meaningful experience. Giving not just their time the girls also pooled in their pocket money and whatever generous parents gave them to raise the cost “which was around eighty thousand rupees.” The success story doesn’t end here for the determined bunch as Sasuni puts it “the next stop is for us to get the car registered so we can put in on the road.”