an integral part of Kshitij, is the biggest event of its kind in whole of Asia. It individually drew participation from distant places like Jodhpur and Mumbai in the west to Madurai in the south.
With a vision to spread the awareness in the field of robotics, the Robotix Team conducts inhouse as well as outstation workshops. These workshops are meant to give a perspective into robot making. Problem statements of upcoming events under .:Robotix:. are also discussed and queries of the participants are answered on the spot.
We started with in-house workshops in the year 2004. Mainly meant to introduce the first years to the world of robotics, these workshops were a huge a success. The participants showed keen interest in these sessions, and this encouraged us to expand beyond the boundaries of IIT Kharagpur. We conducted our first out-station workshop in 2005, at Science City, Kolkata. In 2005 we also conducted workshops at NIT Rourkela, BIT Mesra and ISM Dhanbad, among others.
In line with our efforts, this year we have conducted three workshops so far.
Kolkata Workshop
The workshop in Kolkata was a huge success as the large auditorium of G.D.Birla Shabhagar was packed with about 700 students form schools and colleges all over Kolkata. The presentation started with an introduction to IDEON , the first tech fest of IIT KGP held in 2001 which started with a modest in-house participation and went on to become KSHITIJ -- the largest event of its kind in whole of ASIA in 2006. This was followed by presentations on KRAIG -- The Kharagpur Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Group. The Problem statements of Robotix 2007 were discussed in detail. Video of Dishaniveshi, the first prize winning robot of the autonomous event of ROBOTIX 2004 involving the detection of striped cubes from among striped, plain cubes, spheres and cones over the arena, was shown. The subsequent videos of several of the prize winning robots, both mechanical and autonomous, in ROBOTIX over the years were shown leaving the audience fascinated and awed. Tutorials on making of mechanical and autonomous robots followed, which included a video lecture on differential drives by Sumandeep Bannerjee, the co-coordinator of Robotix team. The session ended with an interactive session with the audience regarding their queries about the workshop. On the whole, the event turned out to be a huge success.
Bhubaneswar
This part of the semester started with the workshop at CET, Bhubaneswar on 15th October. The workshop saw a participation of above 500 school and college students across the city. The workshop started with an introduction to the TRS-Technology Robotics Society of IIT Kharagpur and its two teams: Robotix-the team associated with the management of the events and KRAIG- the group involved in the research and development work in technical field carried out in the institute. Aamir Ahmad the head of the Robotix team gave the presentations on the events of ROBOTIX 2007. Thereafter lectures were given on basics of robot making. Some videos of previous year’s events were also shown.
Hyderabad
The first in the series of our out-station workshops this session was in Hyderabad. This workshop was organized in the durga puja holidays this semester on 29th of September in MJCET, Hyderabad in collaboration with KSHITIJ. A large number of participants mostly school and college students from about four reputed colleges from across Hyderabad including MJCET and Vasavi turned up for the workshop. The workshop started with description of events of ROBOTIX, 2007. Thereafter videos and presentations regarding the basics of robot making were shown. Following that was a video lecture on control systems and sensors by our team heads. A number of videos of prize-winning robots of previous years' events were also shown.
In-House
The semester started with In-House workshops for the first years' students newly inducted in the Institute. These workshops were made special by the enthusiasm shown by the freshers, by turning out in huge numbers. Our auditoriums were filled beyond capacity, as the eager eyed students tried to get their first feel of Robotics. These workshops gave the students a first hand experience of how to make their first robot. Starting with what a robot basically means to making the first locomotion system, everything was dealt with in full detail. Live demonstration of some robots were also done, the most notable being a SONAR based voice controlled bot. Videos of prize winning bots of previous years were also shown. Three such sessions were held in the month of august.
