the .:ROBOTIX:. story
Well, I have really wanted to put this blog down for quite some time, but never found the time to put it down. So, I just included it in the last blog, but I guess this story deserves a full blog. I initially thought of just putting down ideas and events which have been the reason for this event to grow into its current form. But then what makes this team so unique are the people, so a little on the people, all my seniors will be covered. Some of these people have been the biggest influence in my life, they have influenced the way I think, and in lots of cases have set the path, I always wanted to follow. Will keep it as simple and small as possible. It covers around 7 years, so it is a little long.... I just hope it is not too boring :PThe event started off in 2001, more as a inhouse event in the techfest christined Ideon. It saw a modest participation of 9 teams all from KGP. On a personal front, I have never had the opportunity to interact with most of the Heads of this year, but for some phone calls and long chats with Saurabh Prasad and Kunal Sinha, so to say the pioneers of Robotix. In the second year 2002, the standard of the problems was increased, and a few more autonomous events were introduced. But what was more important was KRAIG started after this event, more as a place where people could build funda in Robotix. Again I was not present at the event, but I have had the chance to interact with all of the heads of the event, Sandeep Prabhakara (Sandy), Biswanath Dutta (BD), Dushyanth Giri (Giri). I have rarely been more impressed by people, than I have been by these guys. BD was the funda god, the super dedicated guy, who could put his mind and heart behind anything. In, Sandy's case, I have looked up to Sandy all my life, I have not seen a better planned, charismatic guy. The perfect senior, intelligent, hardworking and practical. For every hallday I spent in KGP, I have asked all people visiting my room, to scribble something on a white t-shirt. Sandy had scribbled "Be the Best!", words which still inspire me. Giri, is the ever approachable senior, cool and helpful.
I joined KGP in July 2002. And I have had the privilige to be involved in 4 events and follow one more very closely. My first year in Robotix was under Lath, Psycho (Vivek Mishra), Raib (Abhimanyu Rai Bahadur) and Alex Thomas (how could I mess up here!). I have not seen heads who have been closer than these guys. There was an element of fun full time in the air, whenever the they would be around. They still represent the perfect team for me. Psycho went onto clear IIMA, he was another amazingly organized guy. Raib was our very own dreamer. Lath, a great senior, and an even better friend, had a great time with him in Vizag. Alex was the AI head. These four guys headed Robotix 2003, this was the first year when we had out house participation, about 30 teams (70 participants) totally. Almost everything in Ideon happened in the Robotix Arena (conference hall). But what this event truly taught me was about how great it feels to work in a team, where people like each other, where relationships were simply beautiful. I was always frightened that this team would loose this human touch as we expanded, and to an extent we did, but I guess that had to happen.
My second Robotix, was truly a one man event, it belonged to Nitin Mohta. Mohta is a true gentleman, he can stand the most horrible of storms, without loosing his composure. The problems decided for this year were very tough, both for us to make the arenas, and also for the teams to finish the circuit. However what was most challenging was the little support, that Mohta had from his co-heads, and I admire the tenacity this guy had in pulling through the entire thing himself, without ever complaining.... he has never complained about it till now! Robotix had about 90 participants and Kshitij had about 400 participants that year I guess.
The next Robotix was in Feb 2005. And we (Golu, Chintan, Gill, Vaibhy, Neha and myself) were to be the heads. But half way through the 2004 around September we realized, we were heading nowhere, some of us were not keen on the event. And then we guys did something most drastic, we asked a couple of our batchmates, and quite a few of my junior to leave the team, as they were not delivering! All our seniors came down heavily on this move, never was anyone fired from Robotix we were told. But we had already decided! We got in fresh people in Rahul and Pallavi to manage Mission Mars (given our low competency on the AI side). We did many other things that year to list a few:
1. Decided to apply a step-wise approach: Set up simple problems for the first year and scale the problems up gradually.
2. More in-house participation: We took 23 first year members instead of the usual 8, this was basically to start building the Robotix culture right from first year in people, this idea hugely clicked. We had 45 teams from the first year batch in 2005, nearly 8 times the previous years number of 6 teams. But on the flip side, I regret this decision, for I had to select 8 sub-heads from this lot of 22, which made life miserable for us, we cut the size to 8, as we had no options.
3. An early website: In the previous years our website would be up only by November, and the problem statements would be changed till as late as December for an event which was to be held in January. This was partially because the Kshitij website got active only in November end. We decided to change this, our site was up by early September, after a lot of drama. Kunal had to pay for the website (www.robotixiitkgp.com not .org) This ensured that our participants could start preparing early, which would mean more participants as well as better quality, which actually happened. On the flip side, I was asked to justify this extra expenditure of 2k or so for the website in the Kshitij budget meeting which ended up turning a little ugly. There were two Robotix heads (Chintan & myself) facing about 15 guys on the other side. I could not explain reason to people like this. I have rarely looked back at Kshitij from a positive viewpoint from then on. All the feeling I had for them was of the village money lender, who saw nothing but money in everything. Waise, I don't think we got paid for the website either ways, inspite of all that happened!
4. A good doubt clearing platform for prospective participants: We made it a point to clear any doubt within 24 hours of it arriving. I personally had exchanged over 400 emails with prospective participants (I have saved a copy of all those mails :) ). My co-heads similarly replied to the emails. This did a great deal of good for the event. A good percent of the participants had interacted with us much before the event. Additionally we had sent doubt clearing teams to ISM Dhanbad, NIT Rourkela, and KIIT Bhubhneshwar about 20 days before the event, to help people with their robots. This payed off handsomely, we had around 40 teams from each of these colleges.
5. An online event: Mission Mars, we decided on this event as the online AI event. The idea of an ant swarm, which we could complicate by the years occured to one senior, Pranay Kishore. I must admit, this guy is easily the most brilliant mind I have seen. However he decided to drop himself out of IIT! But, I am sure he will carve his niche out somewhere. Given our horrible competencies in AI, we took Rahul and Pallavi into the team, to manage Mission Mars, and they did an amazing job.
6. Lecture Series: For the first time we conducted lecture series in Vikramshila for KGPians. We had a participation of over 300 participants in each of the 8 lectures.
With all these the number of teams in Robotix grew from 30 in the previous year to 220! Number of participants also grew six times to about 550 from the previous years 90. Kshitij grew from 400 participants to about 1250 participants. On the whole the event was a huge success. But the sudden explosion in numbers meant we were not well prepared, there were some chaoses in the organization, with events going on till 3 in the morning and all that. The again, we had huge chaos from the Kshitij end, it was on travel reimbursements for out house participants, a lot of them were treated very badly, given the vaguest of reasons for holding the reimbursement back. Even the certificates provided were of a low quality. We decided to print our own certies and got them distributed for ROBOTIX. This led to further chaoses between Robotix and Kshitij, plots and counter plots which finally ended with the formation of the Robotix society, under the gymkhana :). But, I had had enough with Kshitij. A lot of people in KGP, asked me why I naturally disliked Kshitij, this was precisely the reason, I always felt Kshitij was a techfest managed by a group of 'Managers' with zero technical know-how. Infact, we had on multiple ocassions used this technical ignorance of these managers to get things done for ourself [:P], the most notable among them being the current ROBOTIX arena. Having multiple entries, having 2 levels, it is ideally suited for large particpation numbers and multiple events.
Then 2006 happened. We had enough feedback from last years participants, that they wouldn't return (thanks to all the chaos on the reimbursement front). We had no clue on how to get people back. We went onto conduct Robotix lectures, and sell lecture CD's at NIT Rourkela, BITS Mesra, ISM Dhanbad, Science City - Kolkata, KIIT Bhubhneshwar. We again got the website early (www.robotixiitkgp.org same as the current one). Again we made sure, doubts were answered in time. We also retained Mission Mars, as per plan we increased the difficulty level of the problems a little. The posters and all were good. Publicity was mostly done with Kshitij. We also decided to make more of our members technically sound, so that event organization could be smoother as compared to the last year, when very few people had the technical know how to trouble shoot and problems and help people. Finally we had 270 teams, and about 700 partipants, up from the 220 and 550 figures of the previous years. Kshitij took a beating, as number dropped from 1250 to under a thousand. But I must admit, that Kshitij 2006 was very very professionally organized. If they could impress, a die hard critic like me, they must have done a brilliant job. This to an extent has neutralized, the way I look and in lots of cases treat people in Kshitij! However, the best thing about Robotix 2006, was the feedback we got back from participants, a lot of people loved the event, even tough they won nothing. A lot of people were sure on coming back the next year. On the whole it was a job very well done.
Finally coming to this years event, 540 teams, over 1400 participants, simply awesome, ROBOTIX has exploded. On the positive front, we had second years going to places like HYD and Vizag to give lectures (should give you an idea of how technically sound the team is). The event they say inspite of the explosion was conducted in a super smooth manner, minimum chaos. Kshitij number also doubled to over 2k. On the whole I guess ROBOTIX and Kshitij have both tipped. I just hope one of the current heads can put their views on this years and the last years events.
Now coming to where do I think this story must head to, this story must head towards a stronger KRAIG, this story must head towards an event which supports a social cause, an event where problems troubling the society moreso the rural poor can be solved (farm automation, seed processing etc) and more importantly made commercially viable and sustainable...... is such a setup possible... am I dreaming too much... I don't think it will be a cake walk, but I am sure in three years we should have such a system up and running.......
Labels: nostalgia, ROBOTIX, Techfests
posted by aneesh @ 7:24 AM
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