AcYut
‘When AcYut was founded in 2008, humanoid robots were a novelty in the world, not just in India. AcYut, being the first autonomous humanoid robot that was designed and manufactured entirely in the country, understandably generated a lot of buzz and hype. Since then, humanoids have become a bit more common, so there isn’t the same buzz as before’, said Vikram Nitin, Team Leader of AcYut. According to him, the team’s progress over the years has been ‘bumpy to say the least’.
Till 2011, AcYut participated in the RoboGames, winning the competition in that year. The competition required robots to perform various tasks, like dancing, lifting weights and so on. After winning the RoboGames, the team shifted their focus to the Robot Soccer World Cup or RoboCup in short. ‘In the RoboGames, the robots would have to perform tasks which look good but are not really very hard as such. Playing football on the other hand is a much more difficult problem’, said Vikram.
The team has been participating in the RoboCup every alternate year. In the 2017 edition, which was held in Japan, AcYut participated in two categories, the round-robin league and the drop-in challenge, finishing fifth and third respectively. This year, the eight-member team is hoping to participate in a second consecutive edition. ‘Participation depends on some factors. First is qualification. We’ve submitted our qualification material a month ago and are still waiting for the results. If that and the logistics work out, we’ll participate again this year’, said Vikram.
One big challenge the team faces is managing motors and other costly equipment. ‘A small current sent the wrong way could potentially damage the motors’, said Vikram. The motors had malfunctioned during the 2017 RoboCup, severely affecting the team’s performance. ‘What happened there was very improbable. We’ve fixed what went wrong and made sure that it won’t happen again’.
Another challenge the team faces is the lack of a continuous flow of knowledge among batches. A WhatsApp group with AcYut alumni is in place, and while this helps to some extent, Vikram feels that the problem is far from being solved.
With the team constantly working on improving their robot and adding new features like posture balance control, one hopes they become a major competitor in the RoboCup in coming years.
Anant
Last December, a Standing Review Committee from ISRO approved Team Anant’s proposal to build a nanosatellite. The team, who had sent in multiple proposals throughout the last three years before the recent approval, are currently working on a prototype which will be presented in a Preliminary Design Review (PDR) mid-March in Bangalore.
‘Once the PDR is cleared, an MoU will be signed between the institute and ISRO. The understanding is that ISRO will provide technical support for the satellite. According to the guidelines, the satellite will be launched at T+18 months. ISRO will launch the satellite free of cost and provide some components such as battery and solar panels’, said Tushar Goyal, the team leader. Considerable progress has been made by the team in the past few months, and they are on schedule to complete their prototype by March, barring any major hiccups.
The satellite’s mission will be to perform hyperspectral imaging. ‘We take images of various wavelength bands separated by a very small spectral resolution. For every wavelength, we get a 2D image. We get 120 such 2D images and stack all of these images together to get a 3D image. Taking a hyper spectral image requires a lot of power, and storing these images require a lot of memory. Doing all this on a satellite the size of a shoebox has never been done before. We are trying to prove the feasibility of this on a nano satellite’, said Tushar.
Although it is difficult to clear the PDR in the first try, Tushar is confident that the MoU will be signed sooner or later. ‘With the amount of work we have put in, unless we have overlooked a major aspect of the satellite, it will be signed sooner or later. This is a result of the amount of depth we have gone to in our research’, he said.
FS
Inspired Karters FS, the formula student team of BITS Pilani, are busy preparing for Formula Bharat 2019. Though the team finished with a rank of 41 last year, they placed 13th out of 67 teams in this year’s competition in January – their best result till date. ‘We had some major issues with weight. The year before last year, we had CVR250 engine, with 13inch wheels. Last year, we switched to 10inch wheel assemblies and a KTM 390 engine which is more powerful. There were new problems that we didn’t foresee, because of these changes’, said Mudit Chandaliya, head of FS.
‘This year, we had some major goals for the car. We had to reduce the weight of the car as much as possible. So, we used airplane-grade aluminium 7 series components that is not easy to find in India. The aluminium was sponsored by Hindalco. Also, we used carbon fibre in the car. This helped reduce the weight of the car drastically – by around 35 kg’, said Mudit. ‘We also implemented a data acquisition system. We got data from 6-7 sensors and tested and tuned the performance of the car using these’.
A majority of the manufacturing is done in the workshop, and assembly is done in the FS boiler room. ‘Last year, we lacked in the testing of the car. We were able to test it for 60-70km, but international teams do so for 400-500km. The car is initially run behind the LTC. Now it is being tested at the glider slope for ground testing. We’ll hopefully get the car tested for around 300-400 km this time’, said Mudit.
The team are hopeful of finishing in the top 8 in next year’s competition. They are also planning to shift to international competitions in the summer of 2019.
Robocon
Team Robocon designs and builds robots to compete at the ABU Robocon in March every year. The competition requires teams to build robots to execute certain problem statements. In last year’s edition, the team finished in the top 30 in the country, although their performance was hindered by a few technical problems.
This year’s nationals are set to be held in Pune and the winner will move on to the final round in Vietnam. ‘The host nation, Vietnam, released this year’s problem statement. We have 2 robots – a manual one and an autonomous one. The manual bot will have an operator controlling it. The manual robot must pick up a shuttle – a ball with a string – and give it to the autonomous bot. The autonomous bot must now throw this ball through rings from different zones that have been pre-allocated’, said Yash Bansal, team leader of Robocon.
The team had worked on a prototype till December but had to change it in January because it wasn’t working like they had hoped. The team is making good progress, however, and Yash is hopeful of a good outcome in this year’s competition. ‘We have already completed most of our tasks and will continue to practice. We did not get time to practice last year’, he said.
A lack of funding is the main challenge the team faces. ‘We don’t get much funding from the institute; all we get is some reimbursement for travelling expenses. We have to pitch in from our end, and some revenue also comes from our workshop. We started a sponsorship team this year, but we did not get much time to develop that’, said Yash.
To perform better, Yash feels that students need to stay with the team for a longer period. ‘It is important that seniors pass on knowledge to juniors. If they leave the team, this cannot happen’, he said.
In the long run, the team hopes to participate in many more competitions. ‘We are heading in a positive direction, and we will do much better during and after the coming Robocon’, concluded Yash.
Shell Eco Marathon
Team BITS first participated in the Shell Eco Marathon in 2012. The upcoming edition to be held next month in Singapore will be the fifth time the team has participated. The team has been performing well in recent years, bagging the “Perseverance and Spirit of the Event Award” – a cash prize of 3000$ – last year, and the “Special Recognition Award” for design of a hybrid – a cash prize of Rs.2 Lakh.
‘This year, we decided to shift from the gasoline to the ethanol category, becoming the first team in India to do so’, said Yashashvi Tiwari, who heads the team. This shift meant that focus shifted from chassis design to tuning the engine. ‘Tuning the engine is a big deal, at college level in India. We’ve had to modify pistons, engine modes, fuel injection types etc.’, said Yashasvi. The team also had to calibrate the amount of fuel used per cycle and optimise it.
Though the team haven’t had any major issues with sponsorship in the past two years, fundraising is still one of the key challenges they face. While the institute does not provide them any financial support, it does provide resources and mentorship. ‘Most of our work is divided between the workshop and the IC Engines lab. Our mentor, Manoj Sir, is also very helpful’, said Yashasvi.
In the future, the team aims to achieve mileages of 300-400 kmpl and to bag top ranks in the competition.