One of the most active areas of research in the recent decades, students from top universities around the world are engaged in a fierce competition to prove their supremacy in the field of robotics. Team Robocon of BITS Pilani however, isn’t far behind: this group of enthusiastic students design and build robots to compete at ABU Robocon, one of the biggest international collegiate level robotics competition every year.

It is indeed mildly disappointing to know that Team Robocon has no events as such planned for APOGEE 2017. “Our aim is to represent BITS Pilani in the field of robotics at a national level”, clarifies Aakriti Agrawal, a second year core-member of the team. “Since APOGEE clashes with the timings of the competition almost every year, it is too much of a burden on our team to take part in both the events at the same time”. However it would be unwise to write them off just yet, for she believes that the BOT they built this year may be displayed during this APOGEE.

Team Robocon has an unconventional hierarchy, i.e., they don’t have a Captain as such but are collectively responsible for the decisions taken and implemented by the team. Whilst the team is segregated into 3 categories, namely the Electronics, Coding and Mechanical divisions, members often help each other to overcome various obstacles.”There is immense bonding between our core members. It’s always a pleasure to see the team work passionately to achieve our goal”, says Aakriti. In the previous iteration of ABU Robocon, they were placed in the top 15, and they hope to crack the top 10 this year.

When asked to comment about her role as a senior, Aakriti says, “It is a different atmosphere and I relish it: team work, understanding your peers and motivating your juniors is what I feel is true leadership. An optimist by nature, she believes that Team Robocon is sure to reach greater heights in the coming years.