CHENNAI: Five minutes on the stopwatch, a set of colourful plastic building blocks in front of her and confidence — that’s all Harshanya Shankar needed to win. The nine-year-old, who recently won the third edition of the Landmark Lego Championship, says that she was confident about her victory. “At first I was really nervous, so I stayed back and watched the others. It was only a few minutes into it that I realised I could do it too and just went ahead,” she smiles.
Harshanya began playing with Legos since she was four, and spent most of her time playing and creating structures with her Lego set. “We go to Landmark quite often and every time ended up buying a set...so much so that today she has a room full of it,” says Shankar Arumugham, Harshanya’s father.
It was during one such visits to Landmark that they came across the championship and decided to enrol Harshanya in it. “She has been playing with her Lego set for the last five years or so and spends most of her time with it, and so we knew that she could ace this one,” he adds. After crossing the preliminary and semi-finals, Harshanya made it to the finals with eight others. However her 128 centimetres tall structure beat the rest, hence winning the championship.
So what structure did you make? “I made a vertical straight line of blocks, most of the participants did something similar only, but mine was the tallest,” she beams with joy. The class four student of PSBB Millennium School, says that as soon as she returns from school, she runs home to get her hands on her lego set. It is only after that, she sits down with homework and other things. “I think that is why it was so easy for me to win. I always keep trying to make some structure or the other with these colourful blocks,” she adds.
Harshanya who won a trip to Legoland, Malaysia, as a part of her victory seems really excited about her trip. “I have always wanted to go there and now it is possible, I am really looking forward to it,” she adds. It was after a lot of encouragement and support from both her parents that Harshanya went on to win the title. As she eagerly awaits her trip to her dreamland, she continues to explore different creative possibilities with her Lego set. “She is so happy that she told me she would go alone and wouldn’t want any of us to accompany her too,” chuckles Sumitha Shankar, Harshanya’s mother.