IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2018 - 111

Chapter News

RAS Student Branch Chapters
at Quantum School of Technology
and St. Joseph's Institute of Technology
Sponsor Events

n 20 April 2018, the IEEE
Robotics and Automation
S o ciet y (R AS) Student
Branch Chapter at the
Quantum School of Technology,
Roorkee, India, organized the Maze
Solver (Challenge Your Intelligence)
event, with the mission of providing
opportunities for budding engineers
to hone their technological skills
(Figure 1). Saumya Pandey (chair,
Women in Engineering Affinity Group,
IEEE Student Branch) opened the
challenge by welcoming all the
participants and dignitaries. She
explained that the Maze Solver is
an artificial intelligence (AI)-based
competition in which participants
construct a simple bot equipped with
a surface-sensing sensor that helps
the bot find the path and solve the
maze. The team whose bot solved the
maze most efficiently in the least
amount of time won (Figure 2).
Sixteen teams with a total of 63
participants took part in the event.
Each team was required to create a bot
not to exceed 16 × 16 cm2 because the
maze was composed of 20 × 20 cm2
squares. Every team employed its
expertise in the fields of AI and programing along with concepts of
mechanics, devices, and circuits. The
dimensions of each team's bot and
the time it took to navigate the maze
were recorded.
The event was judged by Guru Prabhat (coordinator, Department of ElecDigital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2018.2853413
Date of publication: 12 September 2018

trical and Electronics Engineering,
Quantum School of Technology) and
Dr. N.M. Kannan (coordinator, Department of Agriculture Studies,
Quantum School of Technology).
The members of the winning team
were Koustav Banerjee, Debojyoti
Basu, Gourav Chakladhar, and Lalit

Figure 1. The maze of the event. (Photo
courtesy of Raunak Gupta.)

Kumar, while the runner-up team
included Nishant Lodhi, Ashutosh
Agarwal, Vivek Kumar, and Chhotu
Sharma (Figure 3).
At the event's conclusion, Dr. Gulshan
Chauhan (director, Quantum School
of Technology) awarded cash prizes, trophies, and certificates to the
winner and runner-up, and every entrant was presented with a certificate of participation.
St. Joseph's Institute of
Technology, Chennai, India,
RAS Student Branch Chapter
The following programs organized
and conducted by the RAS Chapter
at St. Joseph's Institute of Technology,
Chennai, India, were partially sponsored by a Chapter Initiative Grant
provided by the RAS Membership Activities Committee.
Soft Skills Training for
Personality Improvement
On 3 March 2018, the RAS organized
a soft skills training session for the
improvement of personality skills. A
total of 93 students attended and benefited tremendously from the event. K.
Muthukumaran, the soft skills trainer,
helped students to learn and manage
the following skills: motivation, time
management, work ethics, business
etiquette, team building, leadership,
and teamwork.

Figure 2. The bot representing one of the
teams participating in the event. (Photo
courtesy of Raunak Gupta.)

IEEE Student Short-Term
Training Program
The RAS organized a short-term
training program on Arduino and

september 2018

* IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE *

111

IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2018