Being students of MITCOE, our group name was forwarded without asking us for this competition. Only the obstacle detector was perfectly working in our project. We were completely unprepared.
On 6th March 2010, on the day when the finals and the semi finals of Robocon were to be held, we were busy preparing the presentation for the Technobot competition. Initially we were highly disappointed that we will miss the Robocon finals. But as people started coming, we saw some amazing projects.
The attraction for the competition was the robot designed and manufactured by students of BITS, Pilani students. It was a dancing robot and the movements it made throughout the song were simply amazing.
The competition was e-inaugurated by Prof. V.D.Karad. 3 judges were supposed to visit each group. Our group was CA-05. First judge was Head of department, Mechanical Engineering, COEP. He really liked our project and praised our efforts. He even went ahead and told us to file patent for our idea.
The second judge was from an embedded system company. He was interested in any working model that we had. He liked the working obstacle detector. The final judge was a pilot and he had a lot of doubts regarding the working of our project. His remarks demoralized us and we lost all the hopes of winning the competition.
Luckily, the third judge came just before lunch and we had done with our presentation just before lunch. We enjoyed the lunch and wrapped our project. As my project partner was in charge of Robocon, he had the keys to the room provided. Thus, we went to the room and rested till 4pm. We were absolutely sure that we will not win any prize.
At 4pm, we went to the hall and sat in the audience. Prof V.D.Karad along with the chief guest had arrived to conclude the competition. After long boring speeches by every dignitary on the dais, finally the prize distribution ceremony commenced.
The prizes for the C/A were being announced. 3rd prize went to project from MAE itself. 2nd prize went to VJTI college students. At this point we had absolutely no hope. We thought we might had some chance to win 3rd or 2nd prize. But even that went to some other students.
Finally the anchor announced. “And the first prize goes to……CA5…..Assistive device for visually impaired…Nikhil Shelke, Darshan Shah and Balaji Shinde”.
We were amazed and in utter shock. How did we win? With lot of joy, excitement and enthusiasm, we went on the dais and received the trophy at the hands of prof V.D.Karad. We humbly touched their feet for blessings. And literally our emotions overflowed in the back side of the stage when we were returning. We hugged each other and kept dancing.
We received cash prize of Rs. 9000, a trophy and certificates. This moment will remain in our life forever. When we took up this project, we faced a lot of problems. Initially, convincing the head of the department. Later, doing research work for blind.
Finally, it feels very nice that our efforts bore fruit.
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