e-Yantra Symposium (eYS - 2017)
April 7th - 8th 2017
IIT Bombay hosted India’s biggest Robotics Symposium, e-Yantra 2017, on 7th – 8th April 2017. 16 teams of students from various engineering colleges in the country showcased their innovative projects. Initially there were 330 proposals, out of which the jury members shortlisted 121 promising projects and the Teams were asked to submit prototypes. 48 teams were then selected to showcase their creations in Mumbai, Delhi, Coimbatore, Pune and Bengaluru.
The e-Yantra Idea competition (eYIC - 2017) is part of the e-Yantra project, an initiative by IIT Bombay funded by the MHRD. The aim of the e-Yantra project is to create a platform to foster the indigenous development of robotics technologies, in tune with the Make in India initiative by the Government of India. Students are empowered through project based learning, with 233 labs set up as robotic testbeds for students, all across the nation. An additional 33 labs are in the pipeline.
Mr. Amit Jain, Assistant Professor - ECE Department and four students Divyansh Negi (ECE), Bhanu Pratap Pandey (ECE), Brijesh Yadav (ECE) and Ankit Dobhal (EEE) from Dronacharya Group of Institutions, Greater Noida attended the Symposium.
Day 1: 7th April 2017
The inauguration started with the lighting of lamp in the presence of several Dignitaries.
Prof. Kavi Arya, Principal Investigator, e-Yantra project addressed the audience and highlighted the significance and goals of sharing projects. He said that the such events ensures a sustainable use of Robotics labs through the e-Yantra Lab Setup Initiative (eLSI) which is sponsored by Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) through its National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT).
In the second session Mr. Soumya Sarkar, Deputy Director, SEDA, ISRO Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad delivered the keynote speech on India’s Mangalayan Mission and also presented a Case Study on ISRO’s Innovations.
In the third session, Mr. Anand Deshpande (CMD PSPL), Mr. Ashank Desai (Chairman, Mastek) and Prof. Dinesh Singh, Vice - Chancellor (Delhi University) gave motivational lecture on Entrepreneurship Quality Development in the students.
During the session, Prof. K. Ramasubramanian (HSS Dept., IIT Bombay) gave a presentation on “Indian Traditions of Excellence in Engineering Science”. He explained various Vedic Sutras of mathematics and correlated them with present day scenario.
In the last session four teams from e-Yantra Ideas Competition (eYIC - 2017) gave presentation on their project implementation and explained their applications.
In the evening there was a music Program by Tushar Bhatia’s “Swaradhara” in the P.C. Saxena Auditorium on the theme “Classical Traditions in Indian Film Music”.
Day 2: 8th April 2017
Dr. Saraswathi Krithivasan Sr. Project Manager, e-Yantra Project, introduced eYRDC (e-Yantra Resource Development Centre) where faculties from different colleges may participate by developing their resource material module and publish their lessons in eYRDC portal. She also introduced eFSI (e-Yantra farm set up initiative), a new initiative under which engineering colleges can set a self - sustaining farm of minimum 150 sq-feet which includes sensing, irrigation, farming in a box and energy harvesting. These two initiatives are also the part of e-Yantra project.
Then Prof. Dinesh Singh (ex-VC, Delhi University) delivered a lecture on “Innovation in Education”. He said that the life is the journey of self-discovery and also living is for learning. He gave many examples from ancient history about learning.
In the second session, Prof. Krithi Ramamritham (CSE) delivered the lecture on Project based Learning with Students – Creating the Ideal Smart City by Studying Smart City Proposals. He said that he has created a syllabus for smart city and running a course on smart city demands and attributes in the IIT campus. He is doing project based study with the team of 20 students and created database for various cities, since every city has its own specific requirements. The smart city model for one cannot be applicable to every other city.
In the next discussion Prof. Milind Atrey (SINE in-charge) business incubation centre at IIT Bombay delivered his lecture on "Learning from IITB’s SINE Business Incubator". He explained how budding entrepreneurs can be benefitted from SINE which is the self - funded Govt. centre. At present 60 entrepreneurs are working with SINE.
Awards Ceremony and Valedictory function was held in the last session. The Teams Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj Shikshan Sanstha College of Engineering from Aurangabad and PES University from Bengaluru both won the prize for “Best Hardware Design”. Vivekanand Education Society’s Institute of Technology from Mumbai and Faculty of Technology from the Dharmsinh Desai University in Gujarat won the prizes in the “Close to Market”.
In the category of “Most Innovative Solution” Fr. Conceicao Rodrigues College of Engineering, Bandra, Mumbai won the prize. The team from Reva University, Bengaluru won the award for the ”Best Demonstration and Presentation”.
Prof. Kavi Arya delivered the vote of thanks and congratulated all the participants and winning teams.