Robotics over the year 2024
Robotics has been a key facet of student life at DAIS. In the past year, our students have done exceptionally win, winning national and international-level accolades.
The pinnacle of the robotics programme at DAIS is our in-school FRC team. FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) is one of the most challenging international level robotics competitions with over 2500 participating teams. This was the team’s sixth season of participation.
Prep for the 2023-2024 season began in June-July 2023, with a technical bootcamp for all the team members. It is the perfect time for team bonding and for the new joinees to familiarize themselves with the construction and programming principles used in robotics. From then on, the team continued to experiment with new technologies, working hard to improve the lapses from the previous year including vision capabilities on the robot and testing different mechanism ideas.
While the technical skill-building progressed, the team also focused on non-technical community outreach events organizing robosoccer contests for underprivileged as well as online innovation challenges in collaboration with the India’s governments Department of Science and Technology and the local municipal corporation. The highlight of community outreach this year was starting FIRST in Sri Lanka, where the team conducted an in-person bootcamp to train and mentor 3 robotics teams.
The challenge for 2023-2024 was announced in early January and the team dived head-first into designing a capable robot to solve the challenge. After 10 weeks of perseverance the first robot, Jaadu, was ready. From March 5-7 and March 22-24, the team competed in Istanbul. The robot performed exceptionally in both competitions, placing in the top 5. Additionally, for the team’s outstanding spirit, humility and collaboration they were awarded the Gracious Professionalism Award. Team Captain Keshav Mohta won the coveted Dean’s List Finalist Award for being an outstanding passionate leader within the team and community.
Asia Pacific Championship- July 2023
Team Eureka, a group of 14 students from grades 7-10, has had a commendable year with achievements spanning across the globe. In July 2023, we represented India at the Asia Pacific Championship held in Sydney, Australia where we were the ‘Winning Alliance’ after competing against the top teams from all over the world in a league tournament. We were honoured to be the ‘First Indian team to be a winning alliance’ at the Championships. It has been a story of determination, tenacity and excellence shown by the team that’s has brought us to great heights despite it being only the first year of FTC for most of the team.
2023-2024- FTC Season
This season has been particularly special for our team where for the first time, Eureka will represent India at the World Championships after months of hard-work and perseverance. At the India National Championships held in Goa in January 2023, Eureka was the ‘Winning team’ at the tournament. The innovation and critical thinking in our group proved to be effective where our team was the first team in India to use a swerve drive, taking robotics in India to a new level. However, our triumph doesn’t stop there - our team secured the national high score of 281 points and were the ‘Think Award’ finalists.
Being the team that emerged victorious, we have qualified to represent India in the World Championships 2024 held in Houston, USA amongst the top achieving teams from more than 100 countries. Our exhilarating journey has been covered by the Goan Local News as well as the IT Department of the government of Goa where we have shared our story with people from all over the country, inspiring young minds to join us in the world of STEM. Being able to go to the world championships has been a dream come true for us and we hope to make our country proud there!
- Anoushka Poddar , Captain of Team Eureka, Member of Elev8
FTC Team Matrix made the school and country proud with their exceptional performance at the Asia-Pacific Open Championship in Sydney, Australia. Pitted against the top teams in the region, the talented students navigated the challenging competition with skill and determination, eventually making it all the way to the finals. Their inspiring journey was a testament to the rigorous training and dedication of the team members, who had honed their robotic engineering and programming abilities to perfection. Buoyed by their success on the international stage, FTC Team Matrix has once again qualified to represent India at the upcoming regional competition in Australia, where they will have the opportunity to showcase their cutting-edge innovations and compete against the best robotics teams from across the Asia-Pacific.
