The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : `Poochi' apart, little future in robotics

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 13, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

`Poochi' apart, little future in robotics

By Sudhish Kamath

CHENNAI, NOV. 12. Robots are not science fiction any more. Spectacular advances have been made in robotics in the rest of the world. In Chennai, however, youngsters interested in pursuing robotics as a career face roadblocks: not only is it difficult to find the components to build robots, they do not have corporate support to fund their research.

Final year engineering students, S.K. Naveen and S. Vinay from the SRM Institute of Science and Technology and G. Arvind and Ashwin Kumar of Panimalar Engineering College, should know.

The four, who have just returned from the International Maze Robot contest held in Nagoya, Japan, with a prize for Best Documentation, had to source their components from used electronic products.

"We used motors from old pagers and back-up batteries of computers and toys," says Naveen. The team built the smallest robot displayed in the contest. They came fourth despite some high-powered competition.

"The others were all Ph.D research students. Our boys were the youngest to participate," says M. Ponnavaikko, Director of the SRM Institute of Science and Technology. The University funded their trip.

Smallest robot

"Our robot `Poochi' weighs less than 30 grams, is the size of a one-inch cube and costs Rs. 600-800, making it among the cheapest robots to build," says Naveen as he shows how `Poochi' can be used as a platform for surveillance and remote monitoring.

The boys earlier participated in the Robotics contest at IIT's `Shastraa,' where the organisers had called for a fire-fighter robot which could move through a model floor, find a lit candle, extinguish it and return to the starting point as quickly as possible. They also organised a Robo Grandprix.

"We have our home-grown beam robots. We have three walkers. Our walkers are robots with four legs, which can walk around, fetch things without crashing into the wall or obstacles. We also have the Solar Robots, the rollers, which move around on three wheels," says Gunjan Goyal, co-ordinator of the Robotics event at `Shaastra.'

Just as the SRM-ites have their `Poochi,' IIT-ians have their micro-mouse, which can find its way through a maze in quick time.

"We can build a `Poochi' in four hours, and it can be controlled from a laptop. It will also respond to voice commands. We are looking at making `Poochi' the platform for applications ... you can mount a camera on top of it and use it for surveillance.

Functionality

"We can even send it through pipes to detect leaks in aircraft design. We want to extend its functionality," says Naveen.

But in India, there is little scope for a career in robotics. Vinay and Naveen do have job offers that they are considering, but they have nothing to do with robotics.

The young men are therefore considering the invitation from Nagoya University to pursue Masters in the Department of Micro and Nano Systems in Japan.

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