A ‘Capacity Building Workshop for organising Indian Robotic Olympiad/World Robotic Olympiad (WRO) 2016 in Innovation Hubs’ was organised by National Council of Science Museums (NCSM), Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India in collaboration with India Stem Foundation. 36 participants from different science centres of India participated in the workshop which was held at NCSM (Hqrs) from March 7 – 9, 2016.
From India Stem Foundation, Mr. Saurabh Abhishek and Sidhhant Tiwari for Game, Rules and Technical Support and Mr. Divey Yadav on Marketing and Program Support participated as resource persons in this Workshop.
The main purpose of this workshop was to acquaint the coordinators about their activities/responsibilities for organising independently the unit level workshop and to train the participants for Indian Robotic Olympiad to be held from August 2016. It was decided that the unit level workshops will be held in 11 science centres where Innovation Hub is already set up.
Day-I (7th March 2016):
In the forenoon of day-1, the participants were introduced to the basics of World Robot Olympiad like different game categories, age group for participation, team size, measuring the box, WRO Brick set, Introduction to different games (elementary, Junior high, Senior high, football), dimension, rule of games, penalties etc. The participants were also explained about the theme of the WRO 2016 i.e. ‘Rap the Scrap’. The games for different categories have been designed according to the theme. The participants were demonstrated to arrange the board, place the blocks, how to decide the place of blocks etc.
In the afternoon, the participants were divided into groups and were introduced to the Kit, Sensor, Core NXT hands on, Shy bot, Grabber etc. The NXT 2.1 programming software was also introduced and participants were asked to program the robot to perform the different task. Different type of sensors like Light Sensor, Sound Sensor, Colour Sensor, Ultrasonic sensor was practically used with the Robot model and programmed to perform the assigned task. Robo Siksha Kendra Teacher’s Manual was also handed over to the participants.
Day-II (8th March 2016):
In the forenoon, the participants were introduced to Open Category and Advance Robotics challenge. The participants were introduced to Tetrix Kit and were advised to build a simple solution for different categories through hands-on activities. The participants learnt to assemble the robots and programme them for performing assigned task.
In the afternoon, the participants were introduced to the challenge for which they had to prepare a solution. It was a test of what they learnt through the workshop and was scheduled to be held next day. The robot had to start from a point and the challenge was to put a ball, three red blocks arranged in a pattern, in the yellow zone (Waste Disposal Area) and place the green block at the end point of the board. Programming and performing activity continued for the day.
Day-III (9th March 2016):
Before starting the demonstration task, WRO online registration, format and frequency on Boot camps was discussed by the resource persons. The participants got their doubts cleared during the Question and Answer session. In the presence of Shri A. S. Manekar, DG, NCSM and Shri S. Kumar, Director (Hqrs) all the participating teams demonstrated their robots as per the assigned task of putting the red block and ball in the Yellow region and placing the green blocks at the Endpoint. Most of the teams were successful in programming their robots to perform the task. This was basically symbol (prototype) of putting the Waste materials (Red blocks) in the Waste disposal area and placing the Bin (Green Block) at the End Point.
Shri A. S. Manekar, DG, NCSM advised all the participants to organise one boot camp at their centres in April 2016. At the end of the program, certificates were distributed to all the participants.
