During a recent visit to a Pi Lab, something on the wall immediately caught my attention. Brightly coloured posters displayed four simple words:

Socho. Samjho. Banao. Badlo.
Think. Understand. Build. Improve.

The posters were clearly handmade with varied colours, and the messages were written in Hindi. They didn’t look like printed classroom charts ordered from a catalogue. They looked like something students had created themselves.

Curious, I asked the teacher about them.

She explained that the students had designed the space as part of a “Build Your Lab” activity. If this was their lab, they were encouraged to decide what it should represent. Over time, the walls began to reflect the ideas they felt were important for their work.

Those four words became the anchor.

Across several schools in India, Pi Labs by Pi Jam Foundation function as modest computing and design spaces embedded within regular schools. Shared devices. Block-based programming platforms. A Raspberry Pi. Locally available materials such as plastic, cardboards etc. On the surface, they appear simple.

What makes them powerful is the rhythm of thinking they cultivate. In many PiLabs, learning unfolds through those same four ideas the students had written on the wall.

Socho – Think.

It begins with noticing. Students are encouraged to observe their surroundings carefully. A well where water levels are dropping. Unsafe conditions during the monsoon. Gaps in hygiene practices in low-resource schools. Problems are not assigned abstractly; they are often drawn by students from the situations they encounter in their everyday lives. The goal is not to rush toward a solution, but to first pay attention.

Samjho – Understand.

Why does the problem exist? Who does it affect? What constraints shape it? Students ask questions, gather information, and sometimes speak to people directly impacted. They begin to see that real-world problems are layered. Surface-level fixes rarely suffice. Understanding requires patience.

Banao –  Build.

Only then do students begin to design solutions. Sometimes this leads to physical prototypes –  a water-level indicator system, a smart safety helmet, or an automatic hand-sanitizer built with reusable materials. Other times it leads to structured plans, digital tools, or awareness campaigns when building a device is not immediately possible.

The form may vary, but the act of making remains central. Ideas become tangible. Thinking becomes visible.

Badlo –  Improve.

Students test what they build. They adjust. They rethink. Sometimes a prototype fails completely. Instead of treating that as a mistake, the process encourages them to revise and try again. Iteration becomes normal.

What struck me during the visit was that these ideas were not just part of the activities happening in the lab. They had become part of the environment itself. Students had chosen to write them on the walls. The posters were small gestures, but they signalled something important. The lab was a space the students had begun to shape and define. Through the “Build Your Lab” activity, the environment itself became an extension of their learning process.

Allowing students to shape the lab itself may be as important as the tools inside it. When learners participate in designing the environment, they begin to develop a sense of psychological ownership and belonging. The lab starts to feel like a space they collectively define. In many ways, this sense of ownership can be more powerful than sophisticated infrastructure.

Educational researcher Seymour Papert described a related idea through the theory of Constructionism  which is the belief that learning deepens when learners build meaningful artifacts. When thinking is externalized through a prototype, a model, or even a visual representation, it can be examined, critiqued, and refined.

In Pi Labs, this principle appears not only in the projects students create but also in how they relate to the space around them. They are gradually building what the lab stands for.

Such spaces show that meaningful innovation matters more is creating environments where students feel empowered to notice problems, explore them deeply, build possible solutions, and improve their ideas through iteration.

The appearance of a lab may vary. The mindset it cultivates should not.

In the end, a lab is not defined by equipment or scale. It is defined by whether learners are given the opportunity to think, build, question, and reshape the world around them.

Link to witness various instances of this initiative: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/thepijam_build-you-lab-activity-7404112640463200256-9F8O?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAABj3ZRcBiffi2aZlY4yL1OYzyKptoTW2v6Q