For educators · The ATL Course · six months
Become the educator who can actually run a lab.
One course, six months. A session online every week, your own board on your own desk, and one week of Learncation with the tools on the table. For the teacher who has been handed an Atal Tinkering Lab, or is about to be.
Think Inside the Box - Try, Fail, Fix, Learn - Educators before equipment - Fit before ambition - Hardware is the reward - Creativity as a skill - Kept while it happens
What teachers face
Handed a lab, never the capability to run it.
Equipment is bought. Capability is built.
The person handed the keys is usually a science or computer teacher with a timetable already full, a room full of equipment, and no one who has run one before. This course is for that person.
Across 722 districts (aim.gov.in), each waiting for someone who knows what to do with it.
NCERT's Kaushal Bodh, mandatory from session 2025-26: 110 hours a year, two consecutive periods twice a week (Circular Skill-81/2025).
A Composite Skill Lab, existing schools by 22 August 2027 (Skill-75/2024; deadline in Skill-13/2026).
What is in it
Seven parts. Everyone does all seven.
In order, each building on the last, each ending in something you made that works.
- 01CodingBlocks that write real code, then the C++ behind them. In Hatch, on the simulator before the board.
- 02EmbeddedThe Arduino UNO R4 WiFi as a machine: pins, timing, sensors, motors, interrupts.
- 03Systems, IoT and CloudBoards that talk. Wi-Fi, a cloud dashboard, a value read in the lab and seen on a phone.
- 04RoboticsSense, decide, move. A line follower from a kit, then from bare sensors.
- 05AITrain a model on images, poses or your own sensor data, then run it on a board.
- 063D PrintingDesign first, print second, discover it does not fit, redesign.
- 07DronesNano-class flight, DGCA-aware, from a first hover to a task.
Running through all seven
The lab itself.
A skill is only half of running an ATL. The other half is the lab as an institution, and it is taught inside every part rather than as a lecture at the end.
- Design thinking the way AIM frames it, and how to run it in a double period
- The ATL Marathon: reading the brief, forming teams, finishing on time
- Documentation as the work happens, so there is something to show
- The grant, what it may buy, and the utilisation record
- Mentor of Change, and what a good mentor session looks like
- A year-end showcase the school runs itself
How it runs
Every week online, one week together.
What you need
- A laptop with Chrome or Edge
- An Arduino UNO R4 WiFi
- A few hours a week, for six months
- One week away, for Learncation
Who it is for
Is this yours?
Four people we meet in schools, and which door is theirs.
- Handed the keys to an Atal Tinkering Lab
- This course
- Named your school's ATL in-charge or Mentor of Change
- This course
- A science or computer teacher who wants the hardware to stop being a mystery
- This course
- Running Think Inside the Box at your school
- CSL training comes with the programme
Honest answers
What teachers ask us.
I don't have a technical background. Is this for me?
Yes. Educators before equipment. Every part starts in the simulator, where nothing can break, and the board arrives when you are ready for it. Running a lab year is teaching work, not engineering.
Do I get a certificate?
Yes, and an honest one: the parts completed and the work produced. It is a Hankernest certificate. AIM does not accredit courses, and we do not pretend otherwise.
What about CSL training?
It comes with the school programme, Think Inside the Box, and is not sold on its own. If your school is running the programme, your training is already part of it.
Can I do Learncation on its own?
Not this year. Learncation is the course's residential week. Standalone editions will return; when they do, they will be announced here.
Can my school pay for me?
Yes. Write to info@hankernest.com and we will invoice your school office directly.
When is the next cohort, and what does it cost?
Dates and the fee are given on request. Write to info@hankernest.com and we will hold you a place.
Talk first
The easiest thing is to talk.
The 15-minute call is free for educators, and "this is not what you need" is an answer we give when it is true.
Describe the lab you have been handed, and we will tell you whether the course fits and when the next cohort starts.