A plethora of coloured wires, switches, buzz of motors, wood and a sparse population greeted one at the Master event of Tech Soc, The Manual Robotics. The theme of the year was titled “Aztec Acquisition” where an ancient tribe sets out to bring down an Aztec temple which would grant them immortality. The competing teams were supposed to make 3 robots.
“The first robot must pick up bombs from the artillery poles and give them to the second robot. The second robot must traverse on an incline through rails and transport these bombs to the top of the pyramid. The third robot must pick up these bombs and get them to the top of the pyramid. After a team gets six bombs and places them all on the Aztec top, the third robot can pick the diamond up from the top and get it to the ground.”
The event started approximately two hours late. Audience Participation seemed pretty flimsy in the beginning but grew and peaked as the performances captured the audience’s imagination. Most teams turned up late and at times the Coords were seen yelling around SAC, looking for absent hostels. Inside sources tell us that the testing arena was ‘improvised’ from an earlier arena built for Robocon. Incidentally, the event cores were present at the event and cheered the loudest as the hostels performed.
Trial runs were provided for all the hostels to test their prototypes and detect possible design flaws. After the trial runs, most were left debating on who would capture the remaining four positions owing to the superior design and working of the Narmad prototypes. Each match involved two teams competing with each other to reach the top of the pyramid in a time constrained mission.
The first faceoff was between Saras and Narmad. Narmad scored a whopping 242, which was greater than the cumulative sum of points scored by all other hostels in first round. At the end of the very closely competed event to be the best of the rest, Alak finished second followed by Ganga and Tambi.
Lead by wonder man Asif who was assisted by a group of enthusiastic freshies, Tambi showed tremendous resolve as they pulled themselves up from a complete fail in the first round to a fourth place finish.