Grand Finale of eYRC witnessed robots solving problems of 'Smart Services'
The grand finale of the fourth edition of highly-popular e-Yantra Robotics Competition for college students was held on campus during March 18-19, 2016. 44 teams from various institutions across India battlled it out for summer internship at IIT Bombay.
Mumbai: The grand finale of the fourth edition of highly-popular e-Yantra Robotics Competition for college students was held on campus during March 18-19, 2016. 44 teams from various institutions across India battlled it out for summer internship at IIT Bombay.
Talking about the theme for eYRC, Prof. Kavi Arya, Principal Investigator of the e-Yantra Project remarked, “The theme for this year's competition was 'Smart Services' and students had to develop indigenous solutions using robotics to engineer services such as hazardous waste disposal, search & rescue, recyclable waste collection etc. Each 'theme' represents a 'real life' scenario modeled as a game which has to be solved by programming a given robot to perform the task autonomously.”
With every passing year, the competition is growing and becoming bigger and better. Talking about the growth of the competition over the years, Dr Krishna Lala, Senior Project Manager, e-Yantra Project informed, “In the year 2012, the number of teams that registered for the competition was 1096. This number increased to 1331 in 2013 and 3107 registrations in 2014. The eYRC 2015 got 4,893 registrations. The number of teams selected for finals at IIT-Bombay this year was 44 unlike 33 last year.”
The selection process is rigourous. Explaining the entire process, Dr Saraswathi Krithivasan, Senior Project Manager, e-Yantra Project said, “Teams took an online selection test to qualify for participating in the prestigious competition. Students who qualified were shipped robotic kits and accessories along with the rulebook for the assigned theme. These teams found a solution using the robot in a step-by–step manner to undertake the various tasks assigned in the competition using the Project Based Learning (PBL) methodology.”
Themes of the competition
1. Courier Service: A raspberry-pi based robot picks up packages from courier companies and delivers them to their destinations. Walchand College of Engineering, Sangli, Maharashtra won under this theme.
2. Hotel Guest Service: The robot detects service requests and delivers the services to the rooms in the order of priority. J.K. Institute of Applied Physics and Technology, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh won in this category.
3. Gas Leakage Detection: Gas leaks are detected by the robot and controlled by shutting different control valves. University School of Information And Communication Technology, Delhi and JSS Academy of Technical Education, Uttar Pradesh were the joint winners in this category.
4. Puzzle Solver using Gripper: Robot solves the mathematical puzzle by picking up numbers from one section and dropping them in another section to complete a sum. J.K. Institute of Applied Physics and Technology, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh won the competition under this theme.
5. Puzzle Solver using GLCD: Robot solves the mathematical puzzle by picking and placing numbers using GLCD as indicator to complete a sum. Acharyya Prafulla Chandra Ray Polytechnic, West Bengal were declared the winners.
6. Search & Rescue: Two robots collaborate to search and rescue the survivors and drop the medical kits. Thakur College of Engineering and Technology, Mumbai, Maharashtra won under this theme.
7. Hazardous Waste Disposal: The robot collects and sorts the hazardous waste and takes it to a dumping site across a river crossing the bridge. National Institute of Technology Meghalaya was declared the winner.
8. Recyclable Waste Management: One robot avoids the obstacles and collects the recyclable waste from collection points and dumps it onto a collector robot. Maharaja Agrasen College, New Delhi won under this theme.
9. Pizza Delivery Service: Robot takes orders and delivers appropriate pizza to the houses in a timely manner. Sir MV Institute of Technology, Karnataka won under this theme.
The e-Yantra project is sponsored by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), under the National Mission for Education through ICT (NMEICT) to provide hands-on learning infrastructure to students who have limited access to labs and mentors. IITB, being an academic institution, promotes and encourages the use of Open Source platforms. Hence, the material developed in the project is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
