The Team Behind SPARSH
Neev and Nysa
Neev Shetye
Age 10, Grade 5
Built the VISTAAR robot — frame, motors, belts, marker lift. Wrote most of the Arduino code for VISTAAR. Built RANG SAATHI's base, housing, and rotation mechanism.
Nysa Shetye
Age 10, Grade 5
Built SRIJAN. Wrote most of the Python software. Led conversations with mentor artists. Designed the RANG SAATHI palette layout and wrote the foot pedal code.
Our Mentors
Minakshee Pawar
Project Mentor
Guided design decisions and team coordination.
Suraj Tiwari
Electronics Mentor
Taught us about steppers, drivers, and wiring.
Harsh Vaghela
Build Mentor
Helped us with mechanical assembly and problem-solving.
Our Artist Mentors
The most important guidance came from the artists themselves. They told us what they actually needed — not what we assumed they needed. They tested our prototypes and gave us honest feedback. They taught us that good technology serves people; it doesn't replace them.
Read About Our Artist MentorsOur School
Aditya Birla World Academy, Mumbai
Aditya Birla World Academy is an IB World School in Mumbai. The school is part of the Aditya Birla Education Trust, which also operates The Aditya Birla Integrated School (TABIS) for children with learning challenges — showing the group's existing commitment to inclusive education.
Our school gave us the space, time, and encouragement to pursue this project — from the initial idea through countless after-school building sessions to presenting at WRO.
Our WRO Journey
This is our second year at WRO. Last year we were on the team that built UniPod, a school-in-a-box for villages without schools. UniPod placed 3rd at the WRO Mumbai Regional and 7th at the WRO India National Championship.
The biggest thing we learned from UniPod is that the best robots come from real conversations with the real people who'd use them. We did that again with SPARSH — spending time with Nadeem, Bandenawaz, and the artists at PRC Pune before we wrote a single line of code.