Is it a dog? Is it a robot? No, it's Aibo!

Dog-robots Aibos are in town as part of the IIT Techfest to play a soccer match today, titled ‘RoboCup’. Six Sony Aibos, divided into two teams, will display their skills, having been programmed by the German student team of the original international Robocup championship.
Two students — Uwe Duffert of Humboldt University and Arthur Cesarz of Dortmund University — from this team are in IIT for this event.
Duffert has been part of Robocup since 1999, as part of Humboldt University’s team which was representing Germany. Last year, four other universities joined Robocup, which is held all over the world.
IIT students also plan to create their own robo-team, to participate in the tournament being held between May-end and mid-September. They are already part of Robocon, another robo-soccer championship.
Says Sourabh Pagaria, Manager (Media), Techfest, “By bringing such events to IIT, we are able to bring out the practical side of the mechanics and robotics taught in the classroom. Also, many students from other universities and colleges come here. They don’t have access to the facilities available here, so it gives them good exposure.�
Adds Duffert, “This sets the next stage for robotics. We can programme these robots to learn various kicks, techniques, recognise team players and locate the ball through image recognition programs. The day isn’t far when we can programme artificial intelligence. In any case, Aibo appears to be quite intelligent, though it doesn’t learn from experience.�
Techfest has much more in store for the legion of students who’ve descended on the IIT campus. For those who want to create their own robots, there’s Yantriki. Another event, Water Rockets, has participants creating rockets which use water as fuel to attain heights of 125 feet.
There’s Open Hardware to promote hardware development, and also Open Software. Says M V Phanikrishnan, a participant at Water Rockets, “By participating we learn from our mistakes, learn about the practical aspect of theory, see different rocket models and learn how a single thing can be done in many ways.�
At IIT, students are set to blast off on a fascinating journey through the tech universe.