Engineering students showcase innovative robotic designs in Pune

Pune, Mar 7 (ANI): The Annual National Robotic Contest ROBOCON 2010 brought together students from across the country in Pune to showcase their designs for robotics.

Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT), Pune, in association with Doordarshan, hosted the contest at Shiv Chhatrapati Krida Sankul, Balewadi here.

The finalists had to build parts of three pyramids in sequence over a time limit of three minutes, using manual and automatic robots.

The MIT Pune emerged as champions.

Prakash Joshi, teacher at MIT, Pune said that this experience would help the students in their future.

"This competition has given motivation to both girls and boys. Secondly they have made all the robots themselves, they got to learn this skill, and in future, when they will go out after receiving their degrees, they will benefit a lot because of this experience, as in their campus placements they are often asked what have they done personally." Joshi added.

MIT will now represent the country at the 'International Robocon' to be held in Egypt this year named as 'Abu Robocon 2010'.

Tushar Mangunnti, student of MIT said:"After winning on national level, we will have special strategies for Egypt. We will work upon the speed and improve it. The kind of speed we had here was not of the standard which could be performed on an international level. But now we will work hard with full concentration and win the international competition for sure."

It is for the first time that an institute from Pune has won the contest.

The first runner-up was Vishwakarma Institute of Technology (VIT), also from Pune, while Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai finished as second runner-up. (ANI)