The APOGEE English Press recently interviewed Shreyash Singh, the coordinator of CRISS Robotics, to gain insight into their work for APOGEE ’23.

The CRISS Robotics team is going to be organising three events, a 3D printing workshop, a Mars Rover show, and Robots at War. The last one, wherein two robots would be engaging in a fight in a combat arena, is a kernel event. It will be conducted on the 1st and 2nd of April from 12-4 AM at Rotunda. Twelve teams are expected to participate. The event has been scaled up for this edition, with this being the first time CRISS has rented an arena for it. Consequently, the prize pool has also been inflated to INR 1.3 lakhs this year.

Each participating team will be given some workshopping facilities and could procure tools from the CRISS robotics team. They will be provided with individual stalls at Ram parking to work on their robots. There is a 15kg weight limit for the robots, violation of which will lead to penalisation.

The preparatory work for CRISS included finding sponsors and contacting different vendors for renting the arena and negotiating the price. They also had to contact tech teams from various colleges for participation, since other campus festivals are conducted around the same time as well.

Outlining the possible challenges during the fest, Shreyash pointed out that the robots may catch fire, thereby stressing upon the necessity for accessible fire extinguishers. The arena would also have to be cleaned after every round. An optimal way to carry the robots from Ram parking to Rotunda has to be put in place, ensuring that the robots are not damaged. They are also trying to acquire a waterproof tent to prevent rain from ruining the event.

Robots at War being one of the most hyped events, Shreyash feels that the team is under slight pressure to live up to the expectations of the people and the CoStAAns. He believes that if the attendees have an exciting time at Robots at War and are interested in learning more about the Mars Rover and 3-D printing, their events would have succeeded. His experience as a coordinator has been great and he has had a smooth experience dealing with the CoStAA. Shreyash said that people should expect an enthralling battle of robots along with a lot of excitement, thrill, and fun.