Robotics Club of IIT Kanpur has numerous eye catching and mind boggling projects that require detailed assessment of mechanical, electrical and programming skills of students working on them.
The project team named ‘KINECT’ has built an autonomous path planning robot which traverses through the changing surroundings using Microsoft KINECT sensors. The robot has a manipulator arm which has a gripper mounted on it.
Another team named AUTONOMOUS UNDERWATER VEHICLE describes its robot as an underwater robot capable of autonomous obstacle detection and hovering(path planning if possible in future). This bot is capable of performing heave and pitch motion and surge and yaw motion.
Next, we have a PIPE INSPECTION BOT TEAM that has designed a Light-weight bot which can climb a vertical PVC pipe from inside for inspection for damage, painting and many other purposes. It include a four Bar Mechanism so as to enable the Bot to climb Pipes of Variable Diameter. The major Hurdle for the Team was to design the bot as light as possible and introduce as much friction between the wheels and the pipe walls so asto overcome the constraints of gravity.
Adding colours to the vast domain of the robotics club, we have SWARM ROBOTICS TEAM. Swarm robotics is a new approach to the coordination of multi-robot systems which consist of large numbers of mostly simple physical robots. It is supposed that a desired collective behaviour emerges from the interactions between the robots and interactions of robots with the environment. The aim of this project was to make 4 swarm robots capable of performing certain tasks based on communication between the bots .One of the bots is controlled by computer(leader bot) and the rest of them are controlled by communication amongst themselves. All the bots form certain pattern and formations according to the code.
Making the club more versatile,we have THE WHEGS TEAM that has made a wheel leg transformer bot that is capable of self transformation into two modes - one inspired by cars as a wheel mode and other inspired by insect locomotion, a leg mode. The legs heed the bot totraverse on rough terrain and to climb stairs while the wheel mode allows it to move fast on a plane surface.
THE BALL BOT TEAM mentioned its project as: Aballbot is a robot that can balance on a ball unlike other robots which require minimum three point of contact with the ground to be stable. Their concept is very similar to an inverted pendulum. Basicconcept was to apply force in the direction in which bot tilts to prevent it from falling and bringing it back to its initial position.
THE ROBOTIC ARM TEAM has made a robotic arm which has 5 degrees of freedom. Maximum reach of this hand is 35 cm and it functions on the basic principles of inverse kinematics. Further, to add icing on the cake for the viewers, it can be converted to an imitating robotic arm using kinect.
Giving a new dimension to the club, THE AIR HOCKEY TEAM has made a game similar to air hockey. There are two bots, one autonomous and one manually controlled and both try to hit a ball in opponent’s goal post. Autonomous bot uses image processing to determine the ball’s position in arena. Is the IITK junta ready to challenge a bot now in the game of air hockey?
THE MICROMOUSE TEAM has worked on a fire fighter bot. Firefighter bot is one such bot which explores a maze and find a lit candle within it using flame sensors and extinguish it in minimum time. It involves both the challenges of wall following, keeping maze's track and sensing the flame.
THE TRI WHEEL PROJECT has chosen a tri wheel design with omni-directional wheels as with its ability to perform rotational motion along its own axis as well as traversing in straight path along any direction the robot has the required qualities and with 3 pt of contact, this model can be used as a carrier/loader at airports / railways station, industries, hospitals where there are lots of obstructions roaming around.
This marks the end of the plethora of projects under the horizon of robotics club this summer.
