When he says yes, they ask him to fall backwards into the carpet (durrie) carried by them. Chennai: Under the shade of a tree on the IIT Madras campus, a group of students stand in a tight circle, arms outstretched and eyes fixed on a student standing on a table. Facing away from them, the student cannot see what is behind him. The group calls out in unison, “Buddy, are you ready?
OBT training programme is unique to IIT Madras, and about 400 new research scholars have undergone this training this year.
Activities like caterpillar walks will teach the importance of coordination, as they can move forward only as a team,” said IIT Madras dean (students) Sathyanarayana N Gummadi. “These games improve communication and social skills of the participants. It will help research scholars to work better in a research group.
This is called trust fall, and it is one of the many activities under outbound training (OBT), which has been made mandatory and included in the curriculum for all PhD and MS research scholars joining IIT Madras since last year.