USU Robot places fourth in India
With just one week’s notice, a Utah State University electrical engineering team created a robot that won the best design award in Asia’s largest and most prestigious science and technology festival.
Aliasgar Kutiyanawala and Nihar Desai, both USU students from India, also took fourth place in the competition out of more than 300 participants.
Techfest, a yearly competition held at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, in Mumbai, India, involves hundreds of participants from all over the world. In 2004, the competition became international, but the majority of the teams come from India. This year, two teams from the United States entered, but USU’s team was the only one to receive $3,000 for round-trip tickets to attend the competition in India.
This year’s challenge was “Survivor.” Each team had to construct a machine that could climb a ramp, survive a 1-meter drop, perform a number of tasks by remote control, then autonomously follow a curvy path using infrared line sensors to complete the course. The actions of the machine resembled those of a moon rover and had to be completed with great precision.
While students in India began preparing and practicing months before, Kutiyanawala and Desai decided to enter the competition with little more than a week before the deadline to create and build their entire model. That week also happened to be finals week.
“We were up every night for one week – that was crazy,” said Desai.
The first elimination round required a video of the machine successfully performing the before-mentioned tasks. After working for hours on the robot in the Center for Self-Organizing and Intelligent Systems (CSOIS), a research facility at USU, the team had to begin testing its durability so they could make the video. With two batteries, a computer and four motors inside, they were worried about the damage the 1-meter drop might do to the machine.
“The first time, we were really scared because it is a robot, so it has electronics inside, and we did not want to damage it,” Kutiyanawala said. “One meter – when you think about it, it does not [seem] like that much. But when you see it from that height, it is quite something.”
Starting from smaller heights and working their way up, the team became more confident as the machine remained intact after numerous drops and throws. They made the video and uploaded it to the competition’s Web site for the officials to download and evaluate.
A week before the competition took place in India, Kutiyanawala and Desai received confirmation that they were selected and took first in the International category. Before they left, though, they had to completely alter the robot because its dimensions exceeded the limit by 3 centimeters. With another week of no sleep, the team perfected their model and went to India for the competition.
After the 30-hour plane ride, Kutiyanawala and Desai went to the three-day competition and were able to spend some time looking at the other contestants’ robots.
“The creativity you see there is amazing,” Desai said. “A lot of students are undergrads and are on a really low budget. We were amazed at things that can come up with a very low budget.”
With no weight restriction, some teams’ creativity ended up being a hindrance. One robot was made entirely out of steel and was eliminated because officials were worried the arena floor would be damaged when the robot made the 1-meter drop.
“I think next time they will be more [careful] and have a weight limit or something because people come up with wacky ideas,” Desai said.
As the competition progressed, more and more people were eliminated with each round, leaving only 30 to 40 entries in the final. Kutiyanawala and Desai came away with the Best Design Award and placed fourth overall. With the amount of time they had to practice maneuvering their robot, Kutiyanawala and Desai were pleased with the results.
“We learned a lot of things,” Desai said. “It was fun.”
When the competition was over, the team spent time with their families for a few weeks before returning to USU. Since their initial arrival here almost two years ago, they had not been able to go home. They enjoyed the time they had to relax.
Desai is graduating soon but Kutiyanawala will be focusing on upcoming projects involving search and rescue robots.
-briannamo@cc.usu.edu