The old ‘Father Christmas’ is desolate and incapable of decorating his Christmas tree. This in turn, interrupts his plans to distribute gifts to children across the world. To restore the gaiety and enthusiasm of Christmas, students should help Santa Claus decorate the tree without direct human interface.
This was the theme assigned during the ‘Manual Robotics’ competition at Mechanica, an annual technical festival of Mechanical Engineering Department at IIT Madras, held recently. Down to the task, a manually operated robot designed by second year computer science engineering students of Chadalawada Ramanamma Engineering College (CREC), Tirupati, fulfilled the requirements, and secured second place in the competition.
‘The Claw’, designed by E. Sai Ram and K. Sai Sireesh, collected the maximum number of balls and put them in various baskets placed at three different heights – 20 cm, 35 cm and 50 cm, while traversing ramps on the course. “We had to collect red and green balls, and put them in baskets on the course within the specified time. Red was assigned 20 points while green balls were given 40 points each,” they added, elucidating the format of the competition.
“Competing with the most innovative student teams in the country was a bit scary in the beginning. But, the performance of our robot in the subsequent stages calmed us down. We are happy to secure a prize in one of the most popular inter-college fests in the country,” said Ram and Sireesh, beaming with happiness.
Krishna Theja Group of Educational Institutions chairperson Chadalawada Sucharitha, CREC principal S. Mallikarjunaiah, CSE head R. Suresh and others congratulated the students.
