On a bright and energising morning, 32 enthusiastic students of class 12 from St Columba’s School, New Delhi along with teachers Mrs Mahima Mehrotra and Mrs N.Menezes visited the IIT Delhi Open House event held on 8th November '25  as part of their science education extension programme. The day proved to be a vibrant complement to the theoretical science classroom, offering immersive, hands-on exposure to real-world engineering and research.

The Open House at IIT Delhi is part of its “Experience IITD” outreach initiative, designed to open the doors to the Institute’s academic, research and innovation environment. 

Our students toured several departmental exhibitions where demonstrations included *3D rendering of models, chemical reaction setups, and interactive labs showing engineering in action. One memorable stop was the robotics and mechatronics zone, where students saw how sensors, actuators and control systems combine in modern machines. They also viewed an exhibit on earthquake stability* in structural engineering labs.

Beyond the demonstrations, students had the privilege of interacting with IIT alumni , present students and faculty members. These conversations helped them understand pathways from school science into cutting-edge research, engineering design and innovation. The alumni shared their experiences of undergraduate life at IIT, research internships, start-up initiatives, and how theoretical concepts learned in school become tangible in laboratory and real-world settings.

The students were particularly engaged when they explored a departmental display illustrating how small-scale earthquake simulation tables are used to test building stability under tremors. The 3D-rendering lab enabled them to visualise complex shapes and structures in three dimensions—bringing classroom geometry and physics alive. The chemical-reactions demonstration illustrated not only neat colour changes and gas evolution but also showed how these are purpose-built experiments in materials science and industrial chemistry.

The visit served as an excellent complement to the rigorous theoretical science education that St Columba’s provides. By linking classroom learning with advanced engineering and research realisations, it reinforced how concepts such as force, motion, magnetic fields, structural stress and computer modelling play out in real-life technological contexts. It helped widen the students’ outlook: from solving textbook problems to imagining how they might one day contribute to innovation, design or research themselves.

In conclusion, the IIT Delhi Open House visit was an inspiring and instructive experience for our 32 students. It reinforced the message that science is not only a set of facts in a textbook but a living, evolving discipline with practical applications across fields—from transport to infrastructure, from robotics to materials. We remain grateful to IIT Delhi for hosting such an open-door day and look forward to more such opportunities to enrich the academic lives of our students.