Creative and Design Thinking Workshop on Robotics highlights the significance of robots in addressing real-world challenges

New Delhi: The Innovation story, along with Capgemini, organised a Creative and Design Thinking Workshop on Robotics for the Precursor to TIS Capgemini Innovate for Tomorrow Contest, presented as a part of the Pre India-Internet Governance Forum event. This opportunity enabled students from grades 8 to 12 to interact with industry experts, get insights into real-world challenges and learn how robots can solve these challenges.

The virtual workshop was organised as a precursor to Innovate for Tomorrow Contest, scheduled from 3rd October to 29th October. The contest invites students in the Grade 8 to 12 to develop innovative solutions to a chosen problem via the use of technology. There will be ten awardees, including a winner, runners-up, and 3rd place in each category + 1 win by popular vote on Instagram.

Ms Meenal Majumder, Founder, The Innovation Story said, “The reality of tomorrow is the innovation of today. The TIS Capgemini Innovate For Tomorrow Contest held as a pre-event at the IIGF is an opportunity for students to ideate and come up with innovative solutions for some of the real-world challenges.”

The pre-contest workshop was introduced and moderated by the students, who also introduced the notable speakers present, including Mr Asim Bhalerao, Founder, Fluid Robotics, Mr Tanuj Jhunjhunwala, Co-founder Planys Technologies and Dr Apurva Joshi, Research Scientist IIT Bombay.

Mr Tanuj was the first panelist who engaged the students and viewers in a presentation about underwater robots. According to him, “the underwater infrastructure will deteriorate over time, and this could lead to catastrophic failure.” These structures need to be checked constantly. However, he continued, “humans going underwater is like going into space. You need a spacesuit. There are a lot of limitations like not being able to go deep, the pressure will hit, cannot have unlimited oxygen and other safety risks.” In this light, he elaborated on human divers versus a robotic machine, stating that these machines can be extremely useful in monitoring “port structures, dams and bridges as well as environmental monitoring and even for defence purposes.”

The second discussion panel was taken up by Mr Asim Bhalerao, who introduced the concept of terrestrial robotics. According to him, “Robots are autonomous machines that can identify their surroundings and move around in this environment.” He continued, “it should be able to navigate around an environment and take into consideration obstacles or anything that can potentially impact the machine’s stability, on its own.” He further gave examples of such robots, stating how they “navigate in complex environments.”

Mr Apurv Joshi was the third panelist who decoded what an aerial robot is and its relevance today. He gave a detailed explanation, starting from the history of such robots and their present-day scenario. The computers are getting better and smaller so you can build more AI.” He continued, “communication modules are enabling drones to talk to each other, so there is more cooperation between them that leads to more autonomy, and they can interact with humans and do more things and help humans.”

In the fourth and last panel, Mr Asim elaborated on creative and design thinking and explained the process of the same to the students. He stated, “design thinking is a framework for innovation. It gives you what the journey should look like when you go from an idea to innovation.” He further added that this “journey involves empathy, the problem, ideas about the problem and how to solve it and then it involves implementing those ideas.”

All four panels witnessed a round of questions and answers at the end, with enthusiastic students asking relevant questions to the panelists. The webinar concluded with a round-up of the discussions and a recap of instructions for the contest.