Chasing a dream: The story on Robocon

It was a rainy day in the August of 2007 and we had gathered in the South Hostel common room for a meeting. Such meetings were a common place those days for various societies and festivals of the college got introduced to us for the first time. But this one was different. It was neither a society nor a festival; still the room was house-full for the first time. Even nerds, who usually skipped such meetings since they counted it into their “precious time”, had taken the front row. It was this magic word that pulled them all in that day – ROBOTICS. We were shown hand-made bots made from the cheapest parts easily available around and how robots could be manually as well as automatically controlled. That day was amazing…
Robotics had a profound effect in our time. As a matter of fact, there were around 80 robotics enthusiasts in South Hostel alone, seniors and girls apart. Our college won almost every contest that we participated in the state including NIST, NIT Rourkela and IIT Kharagpur, which are considered as some of the best competitions in the country. Everyone proudly said – “Robotics runs in our veins”. Glorious time indeed! I feel proud to mention the name of Biswajit bhai (Er. Biswajit Parida, 2010, Mech. Engg.), our senior and mentor who caused this wave of change and who was largely responsible for the birth of robotics club in the college in spite of all the barriers that came along. He was the one to have created the passion of robotics in us and volunteered to guide us in manual as well as automatic robotics design. And slowly, robotics became one of the favorite student activities in the college. But the aim was not just to win national level competitions anymore. Now the plan was to build more advanced bots and get into higher competitions. In the quest for this, Robocon came into picture.
Briefly writing, the ABU Asia-Pacific Robot Contest – Robocon is one of the most challenging robotics contests in the Asia-Pacific region. Every year a problem statement based on a certain country’s culture (the host) is released. It requires the use of manual and automatic robots to complete the given task. Colleges and Universities from all major countries of the Asia-Pacific region including robotics giants like Japan, China and Vietnam also take part in the contest, making it really challenging. The national qualifying round is held in MIT, Pune most of the IITs and NITs along with many other reputed colleges take part. Unlike other competitions, Robocon requires bots of considerably larger size (Typically 1m x 1m x 1.5m) and has a much greater problem complexity as well. But most importantly – high speed and precision are given a lot of importance. The precision required in the design may be realized from the fact that the Arena of dimensions 12,000mm x 12,000 mm (12m x 12m) has an accuracy of ±2mm in its entire design! As such, bots also need to have similar accuracy to complete the task. A well designed bot must have and accuracy of ±0.5mm in its dimensions.
As a newcomer, we had a lot of enthusiasm, but practically very little idea on Robocon. Secondly, we had a relatively low budget, which made things even tougher. For example, while one of the teams used motors worth 50,000 rupees each, out entire bot had a budget not more than 20,000 rupees. But it was the passion, confidence and believing in engineering ideas, that mattered more. And that, we had aplenty. I would not discuss here how much trouble it took to complete the design and reach Pune with all permissions. But I must definitely mention that we wasted more time in getting official permissions and worrying about funds than designing and testing the bot. The worries did not end till we got there and finally reached the practice site.
At the practice site (called Pit), hundreds of students from all over the country worked day and night to perfect their bots. Nobody wanted a glitch in any of their bots during the competition, so the preparations were tough. Bots were getting tested and reprogrammed hundreds of times till they got satisfied. As a matter of fact, the test arena was available 24 hours a day and test slots were booked in all the 24 hours (A team had to book a time slot for practice in the test arena). Practice was critical since every team wanted to complete the task in the stipulated time and also the total allotted time of the event was just 3 minutes. As an example, while our team initially took almost 2 minutes to complete the 1st task, there were teams who could do it in 15 seconds straight! So, we knew, we had a lot of practice to do…
After we realized that we were getting short of time, we dramatically modified the designs overnight. After many modifications, the manual bot was finally capable of doing its task in 40 seconds. Similarly, the automatic bot was now able to hold and place the objects with much more accuracy. Much improvement! I must mention here that our aim was not to win Robocon, not at all. Since we were a newcomer and had a low budget, it was foolish to expect such things either. But we wanted to give a stiff competition to our opponent, whoever it was and learn as much as possible to give a good performance next time. And so we did…
The first match was with K J Somiya Institute of Technology, Mumbai. Since our bot was not very efficient in the beginning, we lost the match to them and got a serious wakeup call! We modified our bot, as I mentioned before. The next match was with Tezpur University, Assam. We beat them with a heavy difference of 154-0. Then we defeated IIT Delhi which was a strong contender and VIT Pune, the runners-up of Robocon 2010, and entered into the top 6. Finally the match came with an opponent we never anticipated – NIRMA University – 5 times Robocon champions including this year. We lost to NIRMA, ending up in Rank 4 in National level.
Although we faced defeat, it was not a sad note for us to return with. Not when we expected to get disqualified from a round or two at most. VSSUT made its mark as a top contender in Robotics in the national arena. And the experience we gained was invaluable as well. But most of all, it was to make the college authorities aware of the fact that students can excel in every field they put their time and devotion into, provided they get ample guidance and support from the side of the university. It was also to make them aware that there are many other communities in the college such as SAE, IEEE, Programming Forum, etc. that need attention, so that they can have exposure to latest technical knowhow and participate in outside competitions.
If you are a student then I must suggest you to pursue your hobby/interest in various societies of the college and encourage others to do so as well. And believe me, it not just improves your knowledge/ideas/skills in your field of interest but also inspires you to be self-confident to become what you want to be in life. Robocon was a dream chase for us but was an immense learning experience too. And we believe, if taken further, this will bring great laurels to the college…
Keep Innovating!
Ashis Kumar Sahoo
On behalf of Team Robocon 2010.