A team of 14 BTech students across departments, working with the Unmesh Mashruwala Innovation Cell (UMIC), IIT Bombay, won the Asia Pacific regionals of Student Design Competition (SDC), an annual event organised by the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME).
The competition was held in Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) from February 1 to 3.
UMIC, IIT Bombay, will now represent India and the Asia-Pacific region in the world finals of ASME-SDC,19’ to be held in Utah, USA, in November. This year’s problem statement was to make a robot capable of picking and placing balls of different diameters (from ping pong to basketballs) placed on a pipe 3 to 5 cm in diameter and 20 cm in height. There were one-on-one matches and the team with highest score won the round.
IIT Bombay came first in the competition in which 21 teams, including IIT Roorkee, IIT Indore, three teams from the National Institute of Technology, an international team from Hong Kong Polytechnic University and VIT participated. The second place was secured by VIT Vellore that scored 24 points. Team UMIC had 26 points in the finals.
“While we have won the Asia-Pacific regionals several times in the past, we won the finals in 2017, which was held at Florida. The statement at the competition is going to remain the same, with participation from all over the world. Our robot took two minutes and 45 seconds to complete the task. We will try fast motors and different mechanisms in order to reduce the time by half,” said Deepak Kumar, a fourth-year student of aerospace engineering and a member of the team, while talking about the Utah event.
VIT will also participate in the finals, he said.
News Source (Indian Express)