Used pen refills doubled up as hinges to connect extensions to the robot and architecture foam was used to build the contraption. Not only were the resources limited, the knowledge to construct a robot, too, was inadequate. Yet, engineering students from little-known colleges came to IIT-Bombay with their machines.
To reach out to non-IITians, the Powai institute had asked engineering students to build a pothole filler or a room cleaner, a pick and placer or a line follower-machines that can scale down day-to-day work. Friday’s event saw the 20 finalist teams, including those from Allahabad, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Salem, Jalgaon and Shimoga, at the IIT-B.
In July last year, IIT-B had launched e-Yantra-a pan-India challenge on robotics with a focus on making robotics accessible to undergraduate students from engineering colleges across disciplines, especially those who don’t have access to facilities and/or mentors. “When you do science by doing, it transforms into something else,” said professor of embedded systems Kavi Arya.
“When you build these bots, you discover sensors, friction and slip, motor and the right tort, you discover errors. Anticipate the world of tomorrow and plan accordingly,” said professor of embedded systems Kavi Arya
The nine-month long competition received over 6,000 registrations from all over the country, including some from the remotest towns and villages like Jorhat (Assam) and Sivakasi (Tamil Nadu). Of these, 500 students made it to the shortlisted 131 teams, who competed to solve one of the four themes.
The winners were: Mumbai’s Vidyalankar Institute of Technology, Bangalore’s Indian Institute of Science and Peoples Education Society Institute of Technology, Allahabad’s J K Institute Of Applied Physics & Technology and Kerala’s College of Engineering Trivandrum.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
