Indore diary [7] : Robot was my life (Part 3)

We went to Bhopal and from there we boarded on a train for Nagpur. From Nagpur we boarded a train for Kharagpur , Durg was one of the intermediate station. At Durg station we got chance to meet mother, brother and some friends of Bhupendra. Her mother brought lunch for us. We enjoyed homemade food while travelling. Food was delicious especially Gajar ka Halwa and one could not expect such kind of lunch while travelling. Travelling with friends is always a wonderful experience. We enjoyed our train journey to Kharagpur.  

In early morning of 27 Jan,2012, we reached at Kharagpur. We hired an auto ricksaw and we finally reached our destination i.e. IIT Khragpur. There we could see so many people like us. Hoardings and posters were around every corner. After registration, we came to know that first round of our competition will be in afternoon around 2 PM. So we had chance and time to improve our robots and also we really needed that. Because we didn’t know whether the slave robot would run or still behave like confused child. There was place for parking at ground floor and at that time that place was looking like workshop. Participants of various robotic competitions were engaged with their robots. We got chance to see various type of robots and how same idea can be implemented in various creative ways. We also found place for ourselves. 

We arrange our setup there. Then we encountered our first problem of the day, we found that we were unable to reprogram microcontroller used in master robot. We look for every possible reason but all was vain. We got stuck in a problem about which we never thought of. Suddenly we found that a wire lose its contact although it was looking fine. So finally we were able to reprogram microcontroller. But the main problem related to slave robot was still challenging us. We tried to use wireless communication between master and slave robot. We tried so much time but the results were much below the required result. Finally we surrender and decided to use wired communication (allowed in competition). We thought this would definitely work fine. But the results were much below the expectations. Now the only option was to try to improve the performance.

Meanwhile, the watch indicates that the time of first round was near. But due to some reason the some delay of two hours was announced there. Now we had some more time to try our luck. Competitions started at scheduled time. But it was already 4-5 PM of evening. Time was passing with every minute. We were still trying and there was not much improvement. Evening passed and sun went his home with promise to come in morning. Time was passing with every second. We got to know that our turn may at 11 at night. We were still messing with robots. At 10-10.30, we came to know that our turn may come at 12. At 11.30, we requested to shift our turn further after few more participants. We wanted to try our best. Around 3-4 AM in morning, our robots got chance to show their abilities. It was near to okay. After competition, we slept at same place where we were trying our luck with robots, we were so much tired and we didn’t have energy to go room that was allotted to us.

3D street painting

Next morning, results were not in our favors. We failed to qualify for second round. Now we had time to attend lecture, demos and various competitions. We also visited kharagpur town. We attended fire and dance show along with lectures by Naseeruddin Shah and Prabhu Chawla.

Although we failed to win the competition but at least we tried and at least I can say that once “Robot was my life.”