Journalism of Courage
For the second year in a row,MITCOE has won the top honours at the recent ABU National Robocon.
Last year,when the MIT College of Engineering (COE) won the annual National Robocon competition,they were over the moon. While last year saw them battle technical glitches to score an unlikely overall victory,this year was a notch further. Held at their college premises,with 81 colleges from all over the country participating,the students from MIT scored a nail-biting win over city rival Vishwakarma Institute of Technology (VIT). Having won the national leg,they will now represent India at the International Robocon in Vietnam,in August.
The theme for the event this year was Green Planet,where the arena was divided into two sections Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere. The teams had to first pick up leaves with the manual robot and place them in green rings in the Southern Hemisphere. The autobot had to place leaves in the green rings in the Northern Hemisphere. Once both the stages were accomplished,the autobot had to pick up a bud placed in the arena,while the manual one had to collect it and fire it. Three rounds were contested in each match during the league and super league matches,while the quarter finals,semis and finals had only one round.
In the final round,while the team was leading at 60-30 leaving behind VIT,the failure of the autobots (automatic robots) of both the teams set up the clash perfectly. While both the manual robots performed to perfection and speed,the autobots faltered at the very end. We got back our edge with speed,wherein we placed three rings in the Northern Hemisphere to clinch the title, he adds.
Other awards at the event included COEP bagging the award for Best Innovative Design,VJTI for Best Aesthetic Robot,IIT Madras for Fastest Job Completing Robot,Muffakham Jah College of Engg and Technology Hyderabad for Best Idea,Dhole Patil COE for Best Manual Operator,UV Patel College for Best Rookie Award,MBES COE Ambajogai for Best Robot by a Rural Institute and Prof Balakrishna Memorial Award for MIT Pune.
