Preparation of a masterpiece
takes time or as they call it,” Rome was not built in a day.” I am again late
for this particular post, but believe me; I was working on it since I returned
from MIT Pune on 10th March 2013 after participating in Robocon
2013. I wanted to include every delicate detail of the valuable experience I
gained in the last few months in this particular post. And that’s why it took
so long. I have tried to include all
those things which my “not so good” memory permitted me to remember, but may be
at some paragraphs I may not have done complete justice to the event. I would urge all my fellow team mates who
read this blog, to comment below where I have blundered with the details. More
or so, I would also encourage them to share their own experiences below so we
can all remember something that was handed down as a legacy to the upcoming new
generation. To all other readers who
were not directly or indirectly involved with us, I would still urge to read
this very long post. Maybe, you find your own calling through it as we did,
maybe you get the courage to pursue your dreams through it as we did, and maybe
you learn something or get inspired for something worthwhile as we did. J
Lastly, before beginning I
would like to thank a few special people who had made our journey worthwhile.
First of all, our external faculty- Mr. Parag.K.Taktawala for his invaluable
time and advice without which we would have been still nowhere. Thank you Sir,
for taking a bunch of irresponsible, incompetent, educated fools under you and
allowing us to explore our own potentials, think beyond our own horizons and
learn something which will remain with us for a lifetime. Secondly, to our alma
mater-U.V. Patel College of Engineering for the unprecedented support given to
us for participating in Robocon 2013 inspite of being a novice. The management
and financial support provided to us during the entire Robocon preparation
period acted as a catalyst due to which we reached this stage. Thirdly, to our
H.O.D. Prof J.P.Patel and our faculty coordinator Prof N.J.Thakkar for standing
by us whenever we needed them, be it night or day. And lastly to our Robocon
alumni- Tejas Jani, Robocon 2012 L.D. Team Captain Nirag Sheth, and our BAJA
SAE 2013 Team Captain Amandeep Singh- for helping us whenever we needed them.
Without your valuable inputs from time to time, it would have been really
difficult for us to achieve this small but valuable victory.
Whenever we enter into our
college life, we all have a certain element of passion and an enthusiasm within
us to make these years counted. The awe from getting out of a school and
entering into an adult college life where no one but you cares about your
education and passion creates a sense of responsibility in you to achieve that
small dream inside your heart. I too had that dream; precisely I was just not
aware of it. While I was in my second year, my immense interest in Robotics
inspired me to watch a Robocon match video live on Doordarshan once. The sheer technology and simple innovative
ideas being used by the participating students struck me hard and BAM! There it
was… I realized my dream. “To
participate once in Robocon before I graduate.”
I realized it late but I was atleast way better off than some of my
counterparts who are still wondering what their dream is and where their
passion lies!
However, I did nothing to
achieve that dream. Atleast, not at that point of time. I did not have resources, I did not have
contacts but I had one person who shared the same dream. One of my best friends
at college- Rushiraj Dixit. I and
Rushiraj shared this same dream of participating in Robocon once in our
lifetime. Together we were also working for our college robotics club named
SkyRock waiting patiently that at some point of time an opportunity would come
when we will be able to live that dream. I made two failed attempts for
initiating Robocon-once when I was in my second year and then again in my third
year. I was dejected and I stopped thinking of it altogether once I was in my
final year. Final year Project and
Grades became more important to me and I completely forgot a dream that I had
dreamt 3 years ago. Then again, one of my juniors-Deep Doshi approached me and
few others in our Robotics group to initiate Robocon. I sensed the opportunity again but I was
afraid of another rejection. Also, I thought it will badly affect my grades
since I was in final year. As a result, I refused flatly with a common excuse
which we all use, “I don’t have time.” I didn’t have time for my own dream
–laughable indeed! But I guess it’s true. We all use this excuse to lie to
ourselves, to coax ourselves into thinking that we cannot achieve this. But in
reality, it’s never about time; it’s always about arranging your priorities. Deep kept on pestering us again and again for
Robocon and soon we gave in. I liked this quality of perseverance in him, a
quality which we all need to cultivate. Saying NO never means you need to back
out, it just means you need to come again and try harder and he kept on doing
that until we gave in!
I again informed Rushiraj about this and as expected he jumped right in. He could also sense that excitement about a dream getting fulfilled. We together asked our other classmates and two of them agreed and so a core team for Robocon 2013 was prepared! Weeks passed gradually and we initiated the hiring process for the team. It was difficult for us to sell the idea of Robocon to our fellow students. Half of the idiots didn’t know what Robocon was and the other half didn’t have enough courage to pursue something worthwhile apart from the college. As they say, Beginning a task is always tough. We could see that happening here. At this point of time, we realized even in real life how difficult it is to convince people about your ideas, and dreams. If you can do that, if you can get people who will believe in your dreams believe me you can do wonders. Gradually somehow we managed to handpick 33 good and eligible students who were interested in participating in Robocon 2013. We conducted an entrance test and shortlisted some 26 students for the final team. So finally on 3rd November, 2012 Team Utkarsh for U.V.P.C.E was found and it was raring to go.
As we started and ventured
ahead, we met many resistances. Many of my friends advised me to stop thinking
of Robocon and focus on my studies instead. Some even had the audacity to say
that,”You won’t be able to do anything since you are first timers. Don’t take
the risk and don’t do this kind of unnecessary hard work. Focus on your final
year. Leave it to some one else.” But I seldom believed these lies. Someone had
to begin, someone had to take the initiative and in my mind, it was me. I knew
we had a petty small chance against teams that had been participating since
last 15 years, but I was happy that I was starting something which no one else
had dared to do. When people are in
their final year they give GATE to check their aptitude in engineering. GATE tells
them how much they have learnt in engineering. I guess I was a bit different
from that herd, coz I gave Robocon! Indeed I thought of Robocon as an exam for
me. 4 years of Engineering, Robotics, Leadership, Team management, Perseverance,
and all those other qualities which I had learnt during my college life span
were about to be tested here. And I had to ensure that I passed this exam
successfully. I never participated in Robocon to win. Yes, when we started to
prepare “To Win” was a motivation which kept us going but in reality it was to
live out my dream. And if you live out your dream, trust me you always win. J
During preparation for
Robocon, we used to work starting from 10 am in the morning to 7 pm in the
evening, and then again from 10 pm in the night to 4 am in the morning. We
lived in inhumane conditions for 3 days in the pit area during the actual
competition. The below is an actual photo of some of my team mates gathering
few hours of precious sleep before the match.
We had sacrificed our sleep,
money, families and even girlfriends for Robocon. I distinctly remember how
some of my friends’ relationships had reached on the verge of breakup. But we
still kept moving on together. We were in a race against time, we had started
late but still we wanted to show everyone what we were capable of. We learnt
the importance of team work during this stage. The weakness of one became the
strength of another and precisely this helped us during the actual competition
when we under a real emergency. During the
real competition we had to secure practice slots for the robots and according
to the rules you were only awarded a practice slot when you have completed your
previous slot. Due to the heavy participation rush that meant if you get a 15
minute practice slot in the morning you could only get another after 3 am in
night. So it was undoubtedly very necessary to communicate with other teams and
arrange for practice in their slots too. This is where team work came into
effect and although we could not get many practice slots, we ensured that our
manual robot operator Chirag Panchal got enough practice to maintain a good
confidence.
On the other hand at that point of time, the atmosphere in Pit Area was pretty gloomy. The Autonomous Robot was not working. Our sensors had deceived us and they kept on giving false triggers in the bright halogen light. Some of us even considered backing out at that point. All that work uptil now seemed to go down the drain. It seemed as if everything was lost. Everyone was clearly upset. But no one spoke about it in public. I cried out in my heart silently at that point of time. I cursed myself. I thought I was a bad team leader. How could I have not seen it! My dad called, I refused to talk to him. I swore to myself, prayed to god that this couldn’t be the way my dream should end. I asked him, if my passion was true and sincere show me a way out and precisely at that moment my phone rang. It was Parag Sir. We had informed him of our problem and he was in touch with us from his workshop at Ahmedabad trying to guide us remotely. He told he was experimenting with new sensors and they were giving good results. So around 500-600 kms away from us on the phone he told us to make new sensors and explained the circuit on the phone. Just according to his instruction we bought the goods from main Pune city around 15-20 kms away and behold! The sensors started working. They were still not perfect but atleast they were working. The enthusiasm returned and joy returned again to the Pit Area. It is rightly said when you really want something the entire universe will conspire for you.. You just need to ask and it will give. It happened here. J
During the entire preparation time for Robocon, I and my entire team saw a tremendous transformation in our thinking capabilities and our working capacities.I personally am a very nervous kind of guy. But tremendous mental and working pressure during Robocon preparation time and the actual competition time hardened me. Before Robocon happened, I was quite edgy bursting into panic attacks at every possible situation. But today, I am conditioned enough not to let situations and people ruin my peace of mind. Each of my team mates conquered some or the other inner demons that they had during this period. For some it was fear of academics, for some it was arrogance, whereas for some it was learning never to leave hope and keeping a positive attitude.
Robocon taught all of us
some or the other lesson that will remain with us for our lifetime. We learnt
how different and difficult it is in real life to implement the stuff that we
have learnt in class. We learnt the importance of imagination over technology.
We learnt why and how important it is to keep the things simple and
straightforward. We learnt how much basics are important and how even simple 11th
standard physics can help us to solve our most difficult problems. There were
people amongst us who wanted to use sonar, cameras and even more complex stuff
that seemed easy to use but when during the initial period even displaying
“Hello World” became difficult we realized the sheer complexity of the project.
Everything is easy when it is in our mind but when it is called to implement-
that’s where the problem starts and the actual fun begins. Robocon taught us
the importance of drawings and dimensions. It is a game that has been designed
to teach us the optimized utilization of each and every resource. Or as Parag
Sir would put it, “The rules and regulations for this game are not designed by
ordinary people. They are prepared by scientists and some of the most renowned
brains around the world.” The mere objective of the game is to teach you each
and every concept that you have learnt uptil now practically. It is designed to
teach you the importance of application based engineering. And precisely it is
due to this reason that Robocon is very different from the IITs and NITs
techfests and it shall remain one of the most difficult competitions ever.
I can still blabber on and on for a dozen more pages because the entire experience was such that it cannot be described in words but I would like to conclude here with some of the final moments. Robocon developed some life long friendships and provided some of the best experiences of a life time. Team Utkarsh won “Best Rookie Award”, stood 1st in Gujarat with the highest no. of points and stood 17th in India ahead of all IITs and NITs. Honestly, we were not expecting any prizes, nor were we expecting of standing ahead of champion colleges like Nirma and LD. It just happened because we worked hard for it and believed in our dream. And when a man believes in his dreams there is nothing he cannot do. We few 8th semester guys namely-I,Rushiraj,Shyamal and Chirag were very happy that we were the proud initiators of Robocon in our college. We rekindled and revived a long lost spirit. We handed down a legacy that was to be cherished upon by the upcoming generations. We were not winners but still we won. J
P.S. This was just a
small poem written by me in train while returning from Pune back to Ahmedabad
Ek
Sapna dekha tha kuch saalon pehle,
Aaj
Pura Ho paaya hai..
Ek
Junoon jo beh sa gaya tha,
Aaj
Phir Se mujh me samaaya hai…
Aaj
Mehsoos kiya us ehsaas ko,
Jiske
liye sab kuch bhula tha..
Aakhir
paa hi liya us manzil ko,
Jiske
liye sab chhodkar chala tha..
Aaya
tha yahaan ye soch kar,
k kuch kar k dikhana hai..
Jitna
mila hai us se zyada,
Jaate
hue dekar jaana hai..
Par
ab jab safar khatm hone ko aaya,
To
aisa kyun lagta hai,
K
ye to sirf shuruat thi,
Aage
ek aur mukaam ki,
Ek
nayi subaah ki,
Ek
dhalti hui sham ki…
Abhi
aaj is mukaam pe,
Bas
ek hi shikaayat hai mujhe,
K
kon kehta hai jitnewalon ko hi sikander kehte hai,
Humko
aake dekho, haar kar jitney walon ko bhi log Baazigar kehte hain…