The interest in robotics among Indians is still very nascent but it definitely is increasing with various study groups and clubs being formed. One such example is the Robotics Club at the College of Engineering at Guindy.
The club is a student-led initiative that was started in 2007 with the aim to serve as a learning group for students in a structured format. “We teach robotics to our juniors, help them participate in events and help them with projects,” said Maheshwar V, president of the club.
The idea, Maheshwar says, is not to learn by rote but to teach juniors and learn more through an interactive process. “We have the support of our alumni who are now in renowned universities in the US and people working in industry who guide us as and when we require,” he said.
Apart from teaching, the club also takes up projects on robotics and has built an automatic guided vehicle, and an alter end vehicle. The automatic guided vehicle is ready to be used in the industry and was presented at Kurukshetra 2011, CEG’s tech fest.
The members devote all their spare time in developing the club. They collect `100 as a membership fee and this money is used for various projects of the club. “Every year we sponsor two or three projects with the money collected but for bigger projects, we seek help from the CEG Tech Forum, the organisation that conducts Kurukshetra,” said Maheshwar.
The club uses Kurukshetra as a platform to showcase their work to the rest of the world. The members admit that the college has a huge role to play in their success. “We are given complete freedom and our staff advisor has contacts with both alumni and the industry,” explained Maheshwar.
The membership of the club is open to all since robotics is an inter-disciplinary field and everyone is welcome to contribute to this developing science.