The BM Birla Science Centre was a hub of activity on Wednesday afternoon as 74 students from across the city’s schools participated in the finals for the Robokid-2013, a state level competition for creating the man of machine to do your bidding. Organised by Jay Robotix Pvt Ltd, the competition was conducted in three phases for students from class six to class 12 with a total of 47 teams making it to the finals. The format promotes the application of concepts learnt in school.
A team of three from Delhi Public School at Gachibowli emerged victorious and bagged a prize of Rs 1 lakh. The participants including Punya Modi, Yash Bellap and Ch.Karthik were thrilled when the robot built by them manoeuvered the arena built for the competition in record time by dodging hurdles and diffusing ‘bombs’ strewn from start to finish-line. “All teams have worked hard and at a point of time we got scared thought we would lose the title. I made changes to the programme which led my team to qualify for final,” said a jubilant Punya, a student of eighth standard. Rahul Reddy, a student of 12th standard at Vijay Ratna Junior College emerged the first runner-up winning`50,000.
More than 900 students from 100 schools in Hyderabad, Vizag, Karimnagar, Vijayawada and Adilabad participated at the preliminary rounds of the competition. The students were trained for two months and 300 participants were short-listed for the competition. Slots were allotted for in-depth training and workshop including live demonstration using softwares and robots by the organizers.