Four children (Gautham Veerapaneni, Bharat Teja Varma Kalidindi, Sai Soham Venkata Mashetty and Riddhi L. Chukkapalli) from Hyderabad came out in flying colours in the recently-concluded International Youth Robotics Competition (IYRC) held in Bangkok. The event, which had over 3,000 kids participating from 30 countries, saw the kids from Hyderabad holding second place (in Humanoid Robot Dance), fifth (in Eco-friendly water sanitation system) and eighth place (in Item Recycle category) respectively.
Gautham, who is studying in class X, Aham Learning Hub, says that the reason he selected the water sanitation project was because they realised how scarce water was in rural areas. “We know how people in rural areas are struggling to get water. So we gave a 10 minute presentation on how water from various outlets (viz, sewage) can be purified and reused for cleaning utensils and toilets. This is an eco-friendly unit (device) and we have built it using charcoal, fine sand, corncobs, etc. We did research for three months to come up with such a portable device,” shares Gautham, one of the members of the water-purifying team.
Continuing in the same vein, Soham Shetty, who is studying in class VIII in Silver Oaks, says that he came to know the importance of team work. “Each one of us in the team explained various steps in the presentation, and this made our job easy.”
For Bharat Teja Varma, who is studying in class IX, in Indus International School, the opportunity to give a presentation in front of a packed crowd was like shedding all inhibitions. “I was part of the team that gave a demonstration about Humanoid Robot Dance. We all were initially nervous, but as the presentation went on, we realised that it was all about breaking the ice and getting started. And the 5th prize our team got, boosted our confidence further.” Riddhi Chukkapalli who bagged eight position in ‘Item Recycle’ category and the class V student from Oakridge School adds, “The competition made me understand about the kind of research we need to do and how to prepare for such big competitions.” Roopak, who has been mentoring these kids, foresees a lot of potential in them. “Since the future is all into Robotics, nurturing these kids at a young age will give them the required exposure for performing at global platforms in the future,” says Roopak,
Next, these kids will participate in the International Robotics Competition in South Korea in August, 2019.
