After witnessing a great win by 14 BTech students, working with the Unmesh Mashruwala Innovation Cell (UMIC), IIT Bombay at the Asia Pacific regionals of the Student Design Competition (SDC), an event organized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME), which was held in Vellore Institute of Technology from February 1 to 3, the team is all set to 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, the problem that was represented at the event, for identifying solutions, was to develop a robot who is 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. The competition was such, the highest scorer, with a one-on-one match, wins the round.
Various teams participated at the event, with UMIC IIT Bombay termed as the highest scorer with 26 points, followed by VIT Vellore who scored 24 points. Other participating teams included IIT Roorkee, IIT Indore, three teams from the National Institute of Technology, an international team from Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
“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, addressing Utah event, a fourth-year student of aerospace engineering and a member of the UMIC.
VIT will also participate in the finals, he added.