Budding robotics experts

Robo Cup 2019: Year 8 and 9 students from India put up a bold act

BY JANANI KARTHIK

Karthik, a middle school student from India, was part of a team that travelled to Sydney in early July to participate in RoboCup 2019, a world robotics championship. He spoke with Indian Link about his team’s presentation at the competition.

“We selected a real-life incident as the theme of our robotic presentation in the Junior On-stage category,” he related. “There was a piece of sensational news about an interstate organ transplant in the newspapers. The heart was transported within a few hours from Bangalore to Chennai with the city traffic controllers in both the cities halting the entire traffic to facilitate the transplantation. We chose this theme of how everybody came together to save a single life. We scripted the narration, composed background music and we performed this act with our five robots playing different characters.”

His team, made up of students in Years 8 and 9 at the BGS World School in Karnataka, was one of 50 from across the world that participated in the event, held at Sydney’s International Convention Centre. In the Junior On-Stage category in which they competed, students presented robots that they designed, built and programmed.

Inchara, a Year 8 student, described another round in the contest where her team got together with teams from other countries to collaborate.

“In the ‘super team’ event, three countries came together to present a new theme,” she described. “We coordinated with Singapore and Italy for this presentation for which the theme was ‘save the environment’. As one of our robots had to perform in this theme, we had to change the entire programming of the robots to this new theme within a few hours. We learned effective teamwork when we worked with other teams and also, got to know different types of robots.”

The BGS World School in Chickallapur, 100km out of Bangalore, was one of 50mschools form across the world that participated in RoboCup 2019

This team from India reached the international stage after winning two regional level robotic competitions. About prepping for this tournament, Ananya from the students’ team said, “For the past three months, we used to practice for our presentation for three hours every day after school. We even utilised the free periods during school hours to discuss the programming of the robots with our teachers. The practical application of the theories during designing of the robots at the robotic labs was an interesting strong STEM education and the exposure to robotics at this young age helped them to reach this level.”

The regard for Mandal amongst the young students is clearly evident.

“Ourprincipal has been parenting us these days,” said Bhavatej, another student. “We feel very good when he treats us like our moms, making sure we eat our breakfast and our snacks! We also cooked for him when he was a bit unwell. We enjoyed bonding with him like this during this trip.” and this year we have come to Sydney to compete with some of the best teams in the world. For the past two years, we are doing well in this competition. This year, apart from this junior team, there is also another team from India, who have participated in the ‘rescue robot’ category. They were one of the top ten teams in that category.”

People across India enthusiastically participated in the regional level competitions to qualify for the international level, Prakash revealed, going from only 20 a few years ago to 600 last year.

“These numbers reveal how competent and enthusiastic we are when it comes to robotics. Isel has been conducting robotics classes in 35 schools across India with 26,000 youngsters enrolled currently.”

He commended Karthik, Inchara, Ananya and Bhavatej who made a commendable presentation but didn’t make it to the top this year.

“It is not about winning or losing. It is all about the new ideas that they have learned during this entire travel. They got the chance to see other teams perform and learn new problem-solving skills. As they met many creative minds from across the globe at this event, they made wonderful technological advancements. This exposure is more important than anything else. During this stint, they learned how to practically apply the programming lessons that they study in their classrooms. That learning experience is the real outcome.” part of our preparation.”

These students are from a rural part of India, Chickallapur, 100km from Bangalore. “Most of their parents weren’t even aware of what robotics is, and what international competitions are all about,” Ranjit Kumar Mandal, Principal of BGS World School, who accompanied the students, told Indian Link . “When these students were selected for the Sydney contest, we had to prepare the parents to support their kids.”

The students slowly gained confidence after participating in the regional level tournaments with a hundred other teams in India.

“Apart from the rigorous training period of three months, the students have been gearing themselves for the past six years,” Mandal said. “They have been participating in various robot contests all these years. Robotics is compulsory in their school curriculum as well. Our

India has been actively participating in RoboCup championships for the past six years. RoboCup is an annual robotics competition that promotes technological advancement in robotics. The major competition of the championship was the robot soccer games, in which many teams across the globe participated in the senior category. To encourage younger minds, there are many categories that carry different themes and the Junior On-stage is one among them.

About India’s role in the championship, David Prakash, CEO iselRobotik India and also the Chairman RoboCup Junior India, said, “So far we’ve participated in events at Brazil, China, Japan, Canada

Isel Robotik India has been conducting robotics classes in 35 schools across India with

Youngsters Enrolled Currently