Robotics turn crowd’s favourite at NIT-T tech fest

TRICHY: The exhibits on robotics -humanoid robot and bionic arm - at the on-going techno-managerial fest - Pragyan 2018 - at the

National Institute of Technology - Trichy

(NIT-T), were two of the major crowd pullers apart from Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) rocket and propulsion models, world’s lightest satellite KalamSAT, experimental projects like Listenin - a device which can diagnose depression using voice, among others.

Robyn InMoov

, designed by Markus Orngren from Sweden, is an open source 3D printed life-sized robot. It is operated by an Xbox (gaming console by

Microsoft

) controller which impressed everyone by giving a detailed description about itself by moving its arms and fingers like a normal human being. The robot can perform basic mathematics and even test fidget spinners apart from voice and touch recognition.

Orngren urged enthusiasts from India to make full use of the open source platform. Speaking about the InMoov open source project, Orngren said, “It is an online community – comprised of designers, students and enthusiasts all over the world – helping each other by providing solutions to improve the quality of robots.”

“The hardware for the robot was in fact made by a French scientist. If I want any improvements, I would post it online and people would come up with their own suggestions. Same was the case for the software of the robot,” he told TOI.

Orngren, whose primary job is working for the betterment of refugee children in Sweden, asked more Indian robot enthusiasts to be a part of InMoov so that they could start getting and providing more ideas.

“Though robotics is only my hobby, I have come a long way by being part of online communities like this,” he added.

On the other hand, Bionic Arm, which was designed, Konstantin Deblikov, a Russian, is a prosthetic arm which recreates functions of a human arm. The Bionic Arm mainly works through a person’s muscle signals. Using just two signals – based on the contraction of muscles – a person can control all the movements of the prosthetic hand. “I do everyday activities with one of my bionic arms. In Russia, I have helped a lot of amputees with my prosthetic models,” Konstantin stated.

The fest was inaugurated on March 1 and it will be held till March 4.