Aanchal and Pallavi Singhal teach at camps, win STEM contests
When Collierville sisters Aanchal and Pallavi Singhal showed enthusiasm for engineering as young girls, their parents encouraged them to go for it. “I said why not?” their mother Vaishali Gupta said this week. “Not for a moment did my husband or I think they would not be able to. We said, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ They had a plan.”
Now 15 years old, the identical twins are approaching the start of their sophomore year at the new Collierville High School already having achieved state, national and international awards in technology. They also launched their own business and are mentoring other kids on how to do it.
Drawing inspiration from women in science, technology, math and engineering who have been their mentors, Aanchal and Pallavi compete in contests made up of mostly male competitors.
In the last year, they won first place in video game design in Chattanooga at the state level, earned a spot in the top 12 at the Technology Student Association nationals and were honored with two awards at the 2018
Albion and also worked for the country’s football association in youth development. He ended up in this part of the world when he accepted a scholarship to play for Union University in Jackson in 2003.
Duncan Nicol, who previously coached at Southwind before taking a few years off to complete work on his doctorate, will serve as Munro’s assistant.
What has separated Collierville from the other two programs Munro mentioned is championships. The Dragons’ lone title in school history came when the girls won the Class AAA tournament in 2005. By contrast, Houston has 14 combined titles, while all-boys CBHS has the state record with 10.
“The goal of course is to win a championship,” Munro said. “But I don’t want to stress the kids, either. I want them to enjoy their time playing for me; I don’t want to be one or two years into the job and have them say, ‘Oh, we hate playing for Coach G.’
“We have talent; we’ll figure it out. But it’s about building relationships.”