We had a large group of 120 students from Guardian Angel Higher Secondary School, Sanvordem in Goa and the session entailed working with the group to coordinate the building of a pipe structure called the geodesic dome. After the initial bit of introductions and easy banter, the instructions were given one after the other. Pick up 10 long sticks. Now connect them. One group of 10 students stood in a circle and put the pipe sticks touching a central point. While this too was not entirely wrong, it did not form the starting shape for the dome base. Another group placed the long sticks end to end forming a decagon. This was a great start.
Then the next set of students were instructed to pick up 2 long sticks and 2 short sticks and place them alternately at each of the points of the decagonal base. Then the 4-socket hubs were brought out to connect the 4 sticks at the base of the decagon. Each long stick joint formed a hexagon and the alternate short stick one formed a pentagon. After this, the 5-socket hubs were fitted onto the pentagons and again the 6-socket hubs were fitted onto the hexagons. Only the last pentagon at the top of the dome remained. The dome was a 4 meter diameter and 2 meter high one. A few of the tall students volunteered. The last 5 short sticks were placed into a 5-socket hub and then lifted to plug into the near completed dome. And finally the dome was ready!
Before the last bit was done, the sticks kept loosening up as the students were fitting each stick. Some were impatient and quickly gave up. Others worked patiently. Some helped the ones that were struggling with keeping the sticks and hubs together. The rest were watching. Some in animated chatter. A few tried to tease in good spirit. Some rushed to the aid of others that were finding it difficult to understand the instructions. A few were documenting the process with photography, videos and reels.
After we had completed the dome, we did a reflection. ‘What did making this dome teach you?’, I asked. ‘It taught me how much fun maths is because this dome was all about shapes and sizes’. ‘It taught me patience’, said one student. Another said, ‘I learnt about teamwork and collaboration’. ‘I learnt about anger management!’ Still another student said, ‘I learnt how important it is to help when we are ready to give up.’ Some were keen to learn about making the lego-like structure out of waste pipes. It is such a useful item as a temporary tent for outdoor camping. And one can make it within a small budget of under two thousand rupees! ‘We now have ideas to make a structure like this in our village, where children can use this as a play space’, exclaimed one enthusiastic student. ‘We can use it by the edge of our field where we grow vegetables, so that we can temporarily sit in the shade using this dome’, said another. ‘It can work as a community tent too!’, one of the teachers asserted.
This exercise was a part of the recently conducted Seeds of Sadbhav programme for youth, an initiative by the Pilar Society to promote interfaith solidarity, peace and harmony. The objective of the programme was to nurture young minds and help in building strengths of character among the students. What are character strengths? Creativity, curiosity, judgement, perspective, bravery, perseverance, zest, honesty, social intelligence, kindness, love, leadership, fairness, teamwork, forgiveness, love of learning, gratitude, spirituality, self regulation, humility, appreciation of beauty, prudence, hope and humour. That’s a huge list, but each is equally important as we grow into adults and responsible citizens. After the students had shared their learning and insights, the resource persons and experts who had conducted various sessions during the day on character building, teenage issues and coping mechanisms, how to use social media, dome building activity, etc also shared some feedback. They said the activity of making and building together was a good primer to help them understand that doing things with collaboration builds trust and solidarity. That more hands can make building easier and faster. It taught them how to be empathetic and considerate to each other. It also taught them that together there is more to achieve and the benefits are shared by all.
The dome is symbolic and so relevant today, isn’t it? Everytime we use the geodesic dome making activity in our sessions, we find the whole exercise very impactful in its subtlety. The dome becomes a people connector, a community builder. When people come together, what is it that makes the gathering special? It’s the time spent together, doing something meaningful or even anything ordinary. It does not need money or materialistic things for the community to come together, to make the meeting memorable. It’s what we do in kindness, love, forgiveness and all the other tenets of our strengths of character that brings value to the meeting of people. When these strengths break down, the community ties also fall apart and then there is no end to the disruption, misunderstandings, hatred and such negatives that eventually lead to war.
The making of the dome therefore represents all the strengths of human character and we must constantly practice these in making and building activities to foster unity, solidarity, hope, trust and peace. A few days ago I received a message from a young architect now based in Bangalore, who instructed her students to build a geodesic dome in their college campus.
If she can build this dome of collaboration with her students, you can too!
(Tallulah D’Silva is an Architect and silver awardee of the Golden Door Award 2020 for truth and integrity)
