Arc Tech Fest ’22

A national wide‘Automation and Robotics Challenge’ (ARC-2022) for college and school students was organized by the Department of Mechatronics Engineeringfrom 17 to 19 March 2022 in collaboration with YAGEN Robotics. Around 500 shortlisted students across India have participated in this grand event. ARC-2022 aimed to inculcate students to learn futuristic technologies through exciting challenges and theywere given opportunity to visit the various state-of-the-art facilities at the Robotics Centre. The event included competitions like Hadtal (Robot Sumo), Grey Matter (Innovation Challenge), YRC (Mobile Robots), Omnirex (Robot race), Tatakai (Robot Hockey) and Queuebot (Line follower); and two workshops: Pre-competition workshop for five schools, and parallel workshop on IoT and 3D Printing.

Pre-Competition Workshop

Apre-event hands on training programme on ‘Naanum Robotai Uruvakkuvean’, meaning ‘I Can Build a Robot’ was conducted by the students of Mechatronics Engineering for various Govt. schools in the Kancheepuram District, in which about 300 students were trained and 8 students were given opportunity to participate in ARC 22.Prof D. Dinakaran, Head – Dept of Mechatronics Engineering said that the training exercise for Govt. Schools conducted by HITS’ students every year reduce the gap in ‘technology divide’ to some extent. About 30 students from Mechatronics Engineering along with faculty including Prof. D. Dinakaran, Prof. M M Ramya, and Mr. Gnanasekaran, NSS Coordinator have conducted the event; and Mr. Ramkumar and Mr. Deenadayalan coordinated.

ARC Tech Fest ‘22

On 17 March 2022, the ARC Fest was inaugurated by the Chief Guest, Mr. Vijaykumar, Assistant Vice President, QMAX Group. Dr. S.N. Sridhara, Vice Chancellorpresided over the event and addressed the audience to explore the various departments of the University and gain insights on theseveral projects build and the ongoing research works and have the spark in their life to achievegreat laurels. The vote of thanks was given by Head of Department –Mechatronics Dr. D. Dinakaran.The Qualifier Round of all the events were held on 17 March. There was a workshopfor the YRC participants to introduce them with the fundamentals about Robotics and helpthem to familiarize with Mark-1 kits provided by our sponsor Yagen Robotics. The participantsof the Grey Matter event showcased their innovative projects and potential product ideas to thedistinguished panel of judges through PPTs, posters and video demonstrations. The details ofthe individual events are as follows.

HADTAL: 

Hadtal was an exciting and challenging game featuring teams of remote-controlled robotscompeting to score goals using a puck similar to those used in street hockey. The robot to be used in the event needed to comply the following requirements: (i) The maximum dimension of the robot canbe 25 cm x 25cm 20 cm (l x b x h); and (ii) The maximum weight must not exceed 5 kg including the battery.All the participants followed the rules and brought innovative and out of the box concepts intotheir robots and gave their fellow competitors a really tough time. The event was coordinated by Ms. Manju Mohan and Ms. N. Seenu.

OMNIREX:

The OMNIREX challenge was an all-terrain circuit set up to push your robot to its limits. Theteams needed to wisely select components that will be used in their Robo race that would takeplace on an Off-Road terrain customized to make it next to impossible to complete the racewith getting penalties. Although a tough challenge, all the teams that participated in the eventmade their robot within the restrictions set in the rule: (i) The maximum dimension of the robot can be 30 cm x 30 cm 30 cm (l x b x h); and (ii) The maximum weight must not exceed 4 kg including the battery. The event was coordinated by Dr.A.Joshuva and Mr. Arun Raja.

GREY MATTER:

The Grey Matter Innovation Challenge provided a forum and invited innovative minds andstartups to present their innovations and ideations. The event was categorized asJunior Category (Class 6thto Class 12th)and Senior Category (Age 18 to 24). The evaluation was based on the level of innovation, the impact of the innovation, and the range of problems solved through the innovation. The event was coordinated by Dr.RM Kuppan Chetty andMs. S.K.Indumathi.The teams were evaluated by the panel of juries—Dr. M.Maheswari, Ms. Shalini.R.Nair, Mr.Nandakumar, faculty members of HITS. Dr.G.Satheesh Kumar, SSN Institution and Dr.D.G.Harris Samuel, Senior Professor, HITS adjudged the winners and runners in the finals.

TATAKAI:

Tatakai is where one may demonstrate the robot's ability to collide with other robots. Thecreativity of the participants can be seen in their robots that though wired mostly have createdhavoc in the battle arena and overthrown their opponents. The event was coordinated byDr.S.Janakiraman and Mr.Rajasekhar.

YRC:

YAGEN Robotic Challenge (YRC) is organized in 3 phases. The first phase dealt with a workshop forthe introduction to the kit contents, basic programming of the robot, application-orientedprogramming, and building of various robots. The second phase observed variouscompetitions involving solving of tasks like pick and place, line-following, autonomouschallenges, etc., andqualifiers were selected to competeduring the finals. The third phase involved the finals where teams work on a single butchallenging task to attain the winner title pf the YAGEN Robotic Challenge. The event wascoordinated by Mr.V.Ramkumar and Mr. P.Natesan.

The event was successfully conducted by the Mechatronics faculty members along with the dedicated team of Mechatronics students and volunteers from Yagen Robotics.