Going beyond theory

Of all the seminars and workshops I have held so far, I fully sympathize with the attendees, because they were all theoritical.

Partly because I have very little spare parts to go by and most of them are solidstate devices.

A little bit of mechanics in action would really increase the appreciation levels, of that I am sure.

It's only then that they would realize how much ground I have covered.

In the meantime, Sourav Sengupta is the only one who has come forward with a working prototype of his stair climber model.

His design is guaranteed to suceed because of two things :

1. His design is simple.
2. His design uses very simple and commonly available parts - and thus easy to maintain and service at the "last moment"

But I am really happy with the feedback I have got from all the teams - they are coming up with excellent ideas and with a little help, they are turning their ideas to reality.

And that makes them real happy.

Maybe they will relize soon what engineering is all about.

How roboticsKolkata can help you

I have a vision : Robotics enthusiasts from Kolkata getting a headstart.

My biggest problem is getting stuff I need in my robotics projects like SONAR sensors, tachometer DC Geared motors (wheel encoders are my last resort - I will try BEMF techniqie first), robot bases and drive trains and so on....

Many friends of mine have given up because of this, but I being the usual adamant self - rarely give up on what I want to do :)

I expect to get enough stuff from various parts of India and make more stuff out of them so that ANYONE can build his own robot.

But to realize this dream, I need help. I need contacts from people who live at Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore.

These are the places where they have the stuff I need.

IR Contactless bump sensor

Some ideas have come to my head to detect noise and deliberate interference of competitors with the IR Sensor.

Will get to work with Gaurav to put the idea to practise.

Bought a few TIP122/127 today for H Bridge and some ULN2803A for IR LED Drive and general TTL to power BJT interfacing.

What seems akward to me is that the TIP41/42 costs MORE than the TIP122/127 .... altough I feel that they have same current and voltage rating. (Is it not ?)

Gotta ask around why...

Is a MOSFET H Bridge beyond us ?

Our "teams"

So far, 1st year ECE, 3rd Year EE and CSE and 4th year I.T has shown enough interest in getting up to speed with robotics.

Gaurav Sinha, Himraj, Utsav, Ariket Dutta, Vivek Anand work with me actively almost everyday to build models, sensors and locomotion strategies.

Jayesh Rajpal has got tremendous experience in Mechanical bases and his expertise is of paramount importance to us. His team FootPrints has won many a prize at ISM Dhanbad, IIT KGP and others.

We are now actively developing :

1. IR Obstacle sensors using tsop1738
2. Multiplexing LED for both lighting and detection
3. BJT HBridge

Algorithms are being made after problem statements are analyzed. We make sure our design fits to specifications, altough Ariket seems to attach no weightage to the specs - this worries me.

What roboticsKolkata is all about

It's about inspiring as many people as possible to take part in Robotics and make their own robots.

Huge robotics team come out from Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi.... but almost none from Kolkata.

I believe any Engineer's passion should be Robotics.

Using this blog, I will show you how students with almost zero knowledge in Robotics go onto winnning prizes in various competition.

Anyone is free to comment and join in to our journey.