RoboCamp a huge draw

Updated on: Monday, June 21, 2010

A clap rings in the bustling laboratory hall of the IIIT-H and the tyres of a crude device built using integrated circuits, diodes, 555-timers, LEDs, amplifiers, comparators and H-bridge motor driver on a bread board, surge forward.

And then another clap, this time on the right of the sensitive microphones and the robot makes a retreat backwards. Depending on which side sound is coming from, the robot moves in the corresponding direction, Durga Prasad from Kakinada Institute of Engineering and Technology (KIET) explained.

A few feet away in the same hall, a mobile phone mounted on a platform rings. Soon as Y. Pravallika takes the call, the robot dances to the tunes of the caller's mobile phone, moving in the four directions N. Navya wants it to. As the robot's decoder decodes the dual-tone multi-frequency signalling (DTMF) frequencies code of the mobile phones, it moves to the right the moment Navya presses 6 on her keypad (4 for left, 2 for forward and 8 for backward direction).

No matter how hard one tried, another robot simply wouldn't bump into any obstacle placed in its way. “The photo diode detects any change in the resistance when infrared rays of IR LEDs reflect back. It then moves back and takes a left turn if the obstacle is placed on its right [and vice versa],” said K. Aishwarya, participating in the annual RoboCamp 2010, at the International IIIT-H.

The three robots, sound detector, mobile controller and obstacle avoider respectively were among the 25 robots designed by students from different engineering institutes that participated in a six-day workshop RoboCamp 2010. Organisers claimed over 900 applicants from 100 colleges all over the country applied to take part in the workshop of which 150 were handpicked. The event was sponsored by professional association body IEEE.

Lectures

Organised from June 14-19, the workshop consisted of lectures by experts in robotics drawn from IIIT-H and other leading institutions. The lectures were followed by a counselling session by student mentors (of IIIT-H) and the participants from IITs, NITs and engineering colleges in the State. “We gauged their knowledge levels, skills and competency before deciding what project a team will do,” said Abhishek Bhatia. And over the next three days, the teams guided by their mentors fiddled with the integrated circuits, sensors and digital logic to come up with robots in time for the demo presentation on Saturday.

“All robots have a basic structure. But the difference between every robot is in its digital logic. So we stressed on electronic logic in this workshop,” said Mr. Bhatia.

Judges panel

The robots were adjudged by a three-member team consisting Jagannath Raju of Bangalore-based automation company Systemantics, Gopal Krishnan of IEEE Hyderbad chapter and IIIT-H faculty K. Madhav Krishna and Vinay Mittal. “They have done a good job,” observed Mr. Raju.

YOGENDRA KALAVALAPALLI

RoboCamp a huge draw

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