City School Students Win Int’l Robot Olympiad, Bring Glory to the Country

Education, Records, All, Science & Technologies, World Opinion
Arock Joe, Motheswar and Shiva Manickam, who won second prize in the International Robot Olympiad held in Russia
Arock Joe, Motheswar and Shiva Manickam, who won second prize in the International Robot Olympiad held in Russia

Chennai :

With wind turbines based on the air velocity in Mars, track wheels based on the planet’s ground texture, sensors and spectrometers, the children who built the robot ambitiously hope to find solutions to the challenges in the Mars rovers. Now armed with second prize in the International Robot Olympiad held in Russia, the team of three from Chennai hope to go a long way.

Arock Joe (Class 9) of St Michael’s Academy, Adyar, Motheswar (Class 10) of Akshayah School, Velachery and Shiva Manickam (Class 9) of DAV Public School are the first Indian team to bag the prestigious prize in the event. The team received its training in Robotics under the Chennai-based trainer TechKnowledge Education Solutions Pvt Ltd.

Over 367 teams from 62 countries participated in the event held in association with the Ministry of Education & Science and Ministry of IT of the Russian Federation.

The theme for the year was ‘Robots and Space’, and the challenge these children took up was the issue of power failures in the Mars rovers in their prototype Infinity-M. “With our research we found that all of them had solar panels as the power source. We found that the wind velocity in Mars was enough to propel a small turbine so we installed a windmill, would supplement solar energy,” said Joe.

The robot built by the children
The robot built by the children

He said that they found that the wheels were getting stuck in some portions in the Curiosity rover, which they changed by using track wheels with larger surface area to reduce the pressure. The team began their work in May. “We did our research on the Internet and spoke to a scientist from ISRO,” says Joe. The judging was gruelling, with nine judges evaluating the students of whom three were ‘plainclothes’ judges who came to the stalls like visitors.

“There were some last minute challenges like Internet issues. And it was freezing in Russia!” said Siva. But the group made it to second place — a huge achievement. Indian teams have been participating for many years, but nobody has made it to the top three until now.

“Robots find their role in anything from making cars to packing pickles. There is a new wave in the school education system that is recently coming up — robotics for school children,” says Godwin Varghese, director, Development and Operations, Techknowledge Education.

The competition, however, had to be funded by the students themselves, and building a robot over months and a trip to Russia did not come cheap. Scholarships and sponsorships could go a long way in encouraging robotics.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Education> Student / by Express News Service / December 10th, 2014