Revisiting robots

Kathmandu

Robotics Association Nepal (RAN) is organising its fourth edition of National Robotics Competition (NRC) on December 19 at Rajdal, Nepal Army Camp, Lagankhel. Earlier, scheduled for December 3, the competition is postponed due to the ongoing fuel crisis in the valley. However, 15-day long Art and Tech Exhibition will start from December 16 to 30 at Nepal Art Council, Babar Mahal.

RAN has been working with an aim to integrate science, technology and arts to create more interactive and immersive projects to show presence of the robotics, art and tech community in Nepal. “We want to see more participants in Yantra 4.0 and those who were not able to register themselves for the competition due to current crisis situation can register in the events latest by December 6,” said Dipesh Khanal, President at RAN, adding that thus they have postponed the event.

“Yantra is not just about robotics but it is a collaboration of science, art and technology involved in making it,” said Khanal, adding, “Preparation of Art- tech exhibition is going smooth and majority of its works are completed.” However, he informed that technical equipments to be used for designing and developing robots have not arrived yet, which they import from India. He mentioned that the event is targeted at the engineer students in order to break the monotony of their theoretical studies. “We are also involving school students as well so that we can give them the basic knowledge of making robots which they can utilise later,” he said.

According to Khanal, the competition this year will follow the theme of adaptation and will focus mainly on the ways to help the victims of the massive earthquake of April 25. It is categorised under four different themes — Towards the Centre, Yantra Manual Akhada, Yantra Automatic Akhada and Yantra Racer.

Towards The Centre is the main attraction of NRC. The participants will have to build a robot that has to automatically cross the wooden blocks and controlled by android application to complete specific tasks for delivering rahat packages. Likewise, Yantra Manual Akhada is an open competition, like a sumo wrestling, one manual robot has to push other out of game arena while Yantra Automatic Akhada is also similar to sumo wrestling, where robot has to push other out of game arena without human intervention. The three events are open to all interested participants. However, in Yantra Racer participants of below 18 years age group will participate and have to build an automatic white line tracking robot and race with others.

“As of now, 26 teams have been registered for the competition and we are expecting some 24 others,” said Khanal. Four projects are under the process of production for Art and Tech Exhibition. These projects are Touch Me Not
Irritating Machine, Peace and Sarangi

“The team getting highest point in delivering and making the bridges Towards The Center will win the prize worth Rs 150,000. Likewise, the fastest and accurate robots in Yantra Racer will win prize worth Rs 75,000 while the winner of
Yantra Manual Akhada will receive prize worth Rs 75,000. And similary, the winner of Yantra Automatic Akhada
will win Rs 50, 000,” informed Khanal. RAN is looking after the entire event of NRC whereas Karkhana Pvt Ltd and
Siddhartha Art Foundation are also involved as the co-organisers of Yantra 4.0.