THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
When the four-member team comprising Deepak N, Raviteja G, Ruthvik C and Phanindra Kumar A along with their mentor, Prof. Dr. Rajesh Kannan Megalingam from HuT Labs, Amrita University landed in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for taking part in the 30 th edition of International Design Contest (IDC) Robocon, they never imagined that they will create history for themselves and for the nation. The team led by Ruthvik with students from other countries won the first prize and Raviteja’s team reached the semi-finals.
The International Design Contest (IDC) Robocon is an educational event that has been held for 30 years since 1990 to foster and develop creativity, technique and international experience of young future engineers. Every year, the contest host universities keep changing, giving opportunity to universities in the various parts of the world to participate in the event by invitation.
International teams of students take part in the contest, designing and building remotely controlled robots. The IDC has been envisaged not as a competition of one country or university against another, but an exercise of communication and cooperation among students, professors and instructors from the different Engineering Schools involved.
Says Dr. Rajesh, “IDC is very unique in the way it is held. The teams are formed during the competition with each team consisting of students from different universities. They have to build a robot from scratch in reply to a challenge situation during two weeks given for the completion and all required facilities are made available for them.”
“It allows students to collaborate with their fellows from the top universities in the world. They will also get an opportunity to network with various professors from these top universities who accompany the students, he added.
The challenge given in RoboCon 2019 was to design and build a moon rover which has to embark from a satellite, roam on the surface of moon, pick up rock samples, plant the flag and get back to the satellite, all within two minutes. MIT provided all the lab facilities including mechanical, electrical and electronics labs and the materials and components required to build the robot.
Apart from India, teams from 11 countries including the USA, Japan, Singapore, China, Brazil, South Korea, Thailand, Egypt and so on, took part in the competition. The team led by Ruthvik won the first prize and Raviteja’s team reached the semi-finals.
Says, Dr. Rajesh, “it is a rare achievement for us at Humanitarian Technologies (HuT) Labs, which has been functioning since 2012 to create robots that focuses on helping people in disaster situations, healthcare, and so on. The lab is open to every student and encourages them to learn and indulge in robotics technologies to assist humans. Our teams have been participating in international competitions since its inception.”
