The Calicut Diaries: Fond memoirs . . . .

It’s a warm tuesday morning and an evening has elapsed since the victorious contingent returned back to Chennai after a memorable journey! Their bags probably still remain unpacked, but so should be their spirits for it was an event that will talked about for a long time at Kidobotikz. While it would only be befitting if we write minstrels about such a performance, we are just sticking to writing a blog about it.

After a three day campaign at NIT-Calicut’s Tathva ‘16, the students belonging to the Kidobotikz community returned home with a string of victories. When the event draw to a close, Kidobotikzians had left a profound impact on everyone from the organizers to the students and the audience. 

The techfest was in very measure of the word, an extravaganza. Hosting 7 events related to electronics and electrical and about 7 events related to robotics alone, Tathva ‘16 was a cracker of an event with participants from across the country. These participants, most of whom were from esteemed institutions such as IITs, NITs and BITs faced fierce competition from a bunch of school students, our own Kidobotikzians. It is nothing less than a wonder that a bunch of school kids participated in a competed in an event hosted for college students and ran them all rout.

The event had a maze of events that were meant to test the knowledge and skills of students. Events such as Amazed, Collision Course, Death Race, Dirt Race, Accelero-Bot X, Circuit Race, Coil Gun, E-Racer were spaced over a span of two days. 

Some of these events had truly interesting themes. The ‘Amazed’ event which had Kidobotikzians grabbing all the three places was a truly challenging event to take part in. It required the participants to develop an autonomous line-maze solving robot which had to find its way out through mazes even as it followed the black lines. Another interesting event was the ‘League of Machines’ where six Kidobotikzians split the prizes for all the 3 places. Each of these events had quite an active participation and had several elimination rounds. Despite all this, Kidobotikzians dominated the leaderboards at all these events. This reiterated the deftness and planning in their preparation for the event. 

With the final tally standing at 15 prizes, one can truly surmise the fact that it was an out and out Kidobotikz show! 

The next stop for these marauding band of roboticists would be FTC for which preparation is underway. Along with the next KRG, which is tentatively expected to be held early next year, the academic year of these geeks is packed with action.

Happy Roboting!

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Kidobotikz's masterful impact at Masterpreneur

It's always a wonderful experience to relive your successful memories and reflect upon the things that made it happen. After all, Memories are but a journey that we take in our minds but relive in our hearts.

For most of you who may not be aware of what we are talking about, here’s some backstory.

CNBC AWAAZ , the channel known for its hard-hitting journalism, is known for its association with a unique reality show called Masterpreneur India. Masterpreneur India is a significant event in it that it helps in creating a community of already existing aspiring entrepreneurs in India who are involved in innovation and are making a difference in their respective business verticals by providing new solutions and products to the community at large. The reality show enables micro entrepreneurs to take a quantum Leap in their business- local to regional, regional to national. It is an event which gives entrepreneurs a platform to fulfill their dream of scaling up.

MASTERPRENEUR INDIA-SEASON 3, which was held in the month of April, was an event that will always remain in the annals of Kidobotikz as an event where we came into our own.

The event which saw a participation of hundreds of startups from across the country had Kidobotikz as one among the relatively unknown participants. The event was known for its unusually tough scrutiny of startups and their performance. After the completion of jury rounds in five zones, the top 15 startups were selected. It was a moment of pride when Kidobotikz was selected as one among the shortlisted contestants for the coveted finals round. From the pool of zonal participants, only 5 startups made to the final round. Kidobotikz, on the back of its strong performance record and its USP of being a firm capable of disrupting the educational sector with its revolutionary model made it to the final round. Representing Kidobotikz at all these levels was Ms.Sneha Priya, Founder, SP Robotic Works Pvt. Ltd (the parent company of Kidobotikz).

At the Grand Finale, all the teams were asked to give a presentation and were subjected to questions by industry stalwarts. The distinguished jury comprised of some well know Industrial stalwarts such as Chathrapathy Shivaji (CMD, SIDBI), Padmaja Ruparel (President, Indian Angel Network), Sanjay Kapoor (Chairman, Sona Koyo group), P.R. Ganapathi (President, VillGro Innovation), Sanjay Pugalia (Editor-in-chief, CNBC). The event was presided by Shri. Piyush Goyal, Hon’ble Minister of State with Independent Charge for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy and Mines. 

Following this was the voting session where the teams were subjected to poll by the audience. At the completion of the voting session, Kidobotikz which had garnered 65 votes was adjudged as the Runner up in the event.

The proceedings of the Grand Finale can be viewed in the video given below.

The following video is a post-event interview that was conducted by CNBC Awaaz. this video chronicles the experience of Team Kidobotikz and its core vision.

Special Thanks to: Masterpreneur India, The Hindu

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Kidobotikz wins an award from the prestigious CII

Team Kidobotikz is happy to announce that Kidobotikz won yet another award from a prestigious industrial body. This reiterates the fact that our core philosophy of taking the knowledge of robotics and skill development to the young generation has struck a chord at the highest echelons of the industry. 

Kidobotikz was awarded with the “Exemplary Application of IT” award by CII for its revolutionary efforts in digitizing the process of teaching robotics to young students. 

Aligned with the Central government’s Digital India initiative, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Government of Tamil Nadu jointly organised ‘Connect 2016’ - an international conference and exhibition to discuss current and futuristic plans to boost the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) ecosystem in Tamil Nadu. This event which has in the past felicitated some trendsetting companies held its 15th edition on the 27th and 28th of September at ITC Grand Chola, Chennai. 

As a part of the pitch, Kidobotikz had enumerated its efforts in usage of the IT Skills in the education space. Kidobotikz had conveyed to the CII panel the facets of its digital platform which enabled the access of technical education to school students. Apart from this, the panel was made aware of the various efforts undertaken by Kidobotikz to ensure opportunities for students to display their learnt skills via application in real-time projects. The panel was also apprised of the various student built projects such SwachhBot, Agribot etc. which had ensured that the Kidobotikz student community was always kept abreast of the latest innovations in the field of robotics. 

This conference was held to host panel discussions that aimed at highlighting the importance of digital strategies and the support structure available for startups from the Tamil Nadu government. The conference also laid emphasis on policies favourable to strengthening of the ICT industry. The two-day conference presented the “CII Connect 2016 Entrepreneurs Awards” to entrepreneurs across the domain of Information Communication Technology who have made major contributions to the industry. The event was attended by many dignitaries such as Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan (Former Chairman Infosys), Mr. Vijay Thadani (Co-Founder NIIT). 

Along with Kidobotikz several other important achievers were felicitated. Mr. Arun Jain, Founder, Polaris, who was awarded the lifetime achievement award and Prof M.S.Ananth, Dean emeritus, IIT-M, who was also awarded the lifetime achievement award were among the awardees. 

Among the inspiring speeches that were delivered at the event, the speech by Mr. Vijay Thadani, Co-Founder, NIIT, was clearly reflective of the path that has been adopted by Kidobotikz. Mr. Thadani spoke on how skill development should be encouraged at the grassroots levels by engaging school students in the analysis of the various tech fields, before they embarked on their careers. Mr.Thadani was appreciative of Kidobotikz’s role as a key player in imparting technical knowledge to students of the schooling age before they chose their respective career paths. 

The award was presented by Thiru.Mukkur N. Subramanian, Hon’ble Minister, Department of Information Technology(Tamil Nadu). On behalf of Kidobotikz, the award was received by Ms. Sneha Priya, Director, Kidobotikz.

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Making history : A retrospective recollection. . . .

It’s been 3 days since the World Record was set and the excitement here at Kidobotikz has still barely come down. For it not often that you witness a world record, much less be a part of it yourself. It was an absolute stunner of an event. The event was a spectacle for everyone who was there to witness it and it was kind of a see it to believe it event.

It is an absolute pleasure as I rekindle my memories of that day. The morning was rather a pleasant one at Bessy with all of us assembling there well before daybreak. With some time spent in arranging the stage and the tables for the stage, we awaited the arrival of students. Kids with all their early morning blues notwithstanding, were themselves punctual as we witnessed a strong entry of student just before dawn. Within a matter of 10~15 minutes all of them had arrived with their parents and were dressed in their Kidobotikz tees. Just as the sun’s orange rays filled the sky, it was a sea of blue at bessy in front of the actual sea.

As soon as the emcee arrived and registration began, all the students got registered and made a beeline to the makeshift assembly line. For the next half hour, the assembly line was a magician’s den as the kids started fashioning a full fledged ATV robot from scratch. There was absolute bonhomie among the kids as they raced against each other and time to get the robots completed. The entire process activity of getting the robots to foolproof working condition took the kids less than half hour. When the final student had completed his robot, it was just 32 minutes 16 seconds and the world record was set.

With this record set, the onus was for the next section of the event where all the assembled on the sand to ride their bots in a rally. 103 robots as against the originally envisaged 101 were assembled in a line on the beach and were rallied across the sand. By 7.50 AM the last bot was past the finish line bringing the curtains down on a memorable event. This was followed by a barrage of questions from onlookers and personnel from media. For the uninitiated, this record was one that they hadn’t fathomed in the wildest of their dreams. As the news of this event flowed across the city, the news started appearing on quite a few forums and the news is still making waves across the city.

Congrats to the kids’ efforts and their parents’ support.

Happy Roboting ! !        

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