My journey through e-Yantra Robotics Competition ( eYRC )
So, this was not the first year I was applying for eYRC two years before that is in 2018 I applied but my team was not able to clear selection test and then again when application portal opened on 31st August 2019, I was completely dedicated and confident that this year I want to get in and give my best.
And then I found those who had the same interest as mine and we made a team of 4. After that, we started preparing for the selection test and after that test, we were not that confident to clear it because from last year's data we came to know that on an average 20,000 – 30,000 students participate.
But after knowing we are in, then it was like that we can do it now. But it was still a long way to go because now we came across technologies that were completely new and it was ROS. We struggled for a few weeks and were able to complete assigned tasks. So, this was in stage 1 were simulator training and testing started for the theme that was assigned to us and it was Survey and Rescue. Stage 1 started around 25th of October and it got over by 26th of November. Days were pretty occupied for us, in the morning we were performing academic work and at night we did e-Yantra tasks.
Sometimes at night, we would get stuck in loops and even forget to sleep and also lose track of time, and the next day we were having a college. But the drive to learn and explore this amazing field made us insane. Then there was some waiting to be done for stage 2 to arrive where e-Yantra will provide us with kits to perform the simulation with hardware in a real scenario. And we really wanted it to proceed in the next stage which depended on the performance of stage 1.
We successfully cleared stage 1 and entered stage 2, this was in early December like around 6th when our journey with hardware started. Now the reality started hitting hard. Testing in the simulator was comparatively easy because there were no other factors mimicked. We could say that simulator was about 94% accurate.
Then too we were very committed to giving our best and slowly we were progressing. But in performing tasks in stage 2 there were many ups and downs that we faced. One was balancing academia and eYRC deadlines also, on the other hand, we got ourselves a small space where we used to do testing and most of the nights were spent there and the place only had basic necessities so the worst part came in January when it was shivering cold and the place was on 6th floor.
So, we all would be completely covered up in hoddies and there were times at night when we were like this as shown in the image.
But these were the times that we recall and miss now. Those long nights and the most amazing part was at the time of Uttrayan when most of the people were flying kites and we literally were flying drone attached to a string so it won’t crash as it was running autonomously.
When the final task arrived it was time-bound and at the same time we were having our mid-seems and that was one of the toughest challenges that we faced. But we all tried to give our best as we never thought we would come so far into it. Everything completed by the 29th of Feb and then there was just waiting for the result to get announced.
And I forgot to introduce you to my team which is as follow:
And then the time came, we made it through the finals. Yes, finally the hard work for about 6 months paid off and the finals were declared to happen on 28–29 of March at IIT Bombay. I think you might have guessed it by now. It didn’t happen due to the COVID-19 pandemic and it got delayed which was uncertain.
But thanks to Kavi Arya sir, it became possible for us to have our first remote nationals for an e-Yantra robotics competition and this was really exciting. But now nervousness began to gain its momentum and we were given the task to make a video for the intro and the final stage submission. And the funniest part was seeing a video is easy but to record one and edit it took the whole next level of work. We took multiple retakes but here we got a glimpse of what it's like to be YouTuber and to all who are doing, you are putting great efforts guys.
And today that is the 30th of June there was a live stream of our competition and there were an introduction and submission video followed by a live Q&A session and this is going to be one of the memorable days of my life. If you missed it then you can check it out here.
This was an amazing experience and for all those who don’t know what is e-Yantra and what other initiatives they have started, stay tuned as I am about to bring a complete blog series on the same. Also, I would be sharing my another journey where all the finalists got an opportunity to be part of an e-Yantra internship called eYSIP and I was one of those interns this year.
I would like to thank all the mentors, theme designers, and Kavi Arya sir for giving us this opportunity and let us discover this amazing world of robotics.
