Released on: June 19, 2008, 10:31 am

Press Release Author: Dr BR Natarajan

Industry: Electronics

Press Release Summary: Robotics is becoming the new lifestyle sport of the thinking
age. RoboGames as per Guinness Book of World Records is \"World\'s Largest Robot
competition\" and No one has any doubt that successor to Space Race is the Humanoid
Race.

Press Release Body: David Calkins who had worked with all types of robot
competitions, realized the need for cross-pollination between events, as too many
robot builders over-specialized within their own field. In 2004, he founded the
RoboGames (http://www.RoboGames.net) as RoboOlympics to bring together builders from
combat robotics (mechanical engineering) along with soccer robotics (computer
programming), sumo robotics (sensors), androids (motion control), and art robots
(aesthetics) to exchange ideas and learn more.

By offering gold, silver and bronze medals, and inviting the best robot builders
from countries other than just the US, RoboGames has given everyone a chance to
excel and compete on a level playing field. Like the human Olympics, this event
allows anyone to compete, not discriminating by race, nationality, age, education,
gender, or even carbon-base...

The fifth edition of RoboGames involving 18 Countries, 58 Events, 176 Teams, 482
Entries, 504 Robots, and 563 Engineers was scheduled from Friday-Sunday, June 13-15,
2007 at Fort Mason Festival Pavilion, San Francisco California. The participating
countries included USA, Korea, Austria, UK, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Taiwan, Brazil,
Singapore, Australia, Denmark and India.

Samay Kohli, Arpit Mohan, Harsh Sinha, Prayag Mukherjee and Miss Sushma Vallabhaneni
students from Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani which is one
among the top ranking universities in India today dared to dream, conceived,
fabricated, tested and put India's First Humanoid ACYUT (imperishable) in action.

They were mentored by none other than Proud to be a BITSian and President of BITS
Alumni Association (BITSAA) Dr R K Mittal Professor of Mechanical Engineering &
Computer Science who is also presently the Dean for Academic Registration and
Counselling at BITS Pilani. Dr Ravi Mittal has also authored a book titled Robotics
and Control, ISBN 0070482934 ISBN-13 9780070482937 published by Tata McGraw-Hill.

The spark for the Humanoid project was lit when a delegate from Singapore
demonstrated a humanoid at the International Conference on Emerging Mechanical
Technology Macro to Nano held at BITS Pilani during 16 - 18 Feb 2007
(http://www.bits-pilani.ac.in:12371/).

After the conference a group of BITS students asked Dr Mittal Can We and Dr Mittal
said Yes We can and We Will and the Race for Humanoid capable of performing a
plethora of functions such as walking, climbing stairs, playing football, etc.
started.

The alumni batch of 76-81 from BITS Pilani who celebrated their Silver Jubilee
Reunion at Pilani during October 2006 got excited by the ACYUT Humanoid Project and
stepped in to support the efforts morally, technically and financially and then on
it became a Mission with Passion to reach the RoboGames 2008.

One of the alumnus of the Institute Viggy Mokkarala Executive Vice President,
Envestnet Asset Management Inc on finding a girl in the ACYUT mission remarked "I,
for one, and as a father of a 17 year old girl, will go out of my way to encourage a
BITS woman engineer to go the extra distance and go for something like this
project." In fact enrollment of girls for higher education at BITS is itself a
revealing statistics which is Neighbour's Envy Owners Pride.

Subodh Karnik who needs no introduction arranged for free air tickets for the team's
travel. Sierra Atlantic Raju Reddy arranged for corporate funding and taking care of
a good portion of the team\'s stay in the bay area, transportation, food, etc. Other
BITSians like Arun Lakhotia have sponsored the team trip to Louisiana University
(travel, accomodation and food/logistics) and Nasir has arranged for the students\'
stay in the New York area.

BITS-Pilani Alumni Association (BITSAA SVC Chapter) and The Indus Entrepreneurs
(TiE) planned for co-hosting the reception on June 17, 2008 at TiE Silicon Valley
Office, Santa Clara , CA for the Humanoid where the students from BITS Pilani would
display ACYUT and its prowess on the soccer field and the dance floor!

The reception also included a panel discussion on the emerging cross border
collaboration between leading universities and businesses in India and the US with
the participation of Prof. Krishna Saraswat (BITS-Pilani \'68), Professor, School of
Engineering Stanford University and Patrick Kane, University Alliance Director,
Cypress Semiconductor Corp.

Now that ACYUT the first humanoid from India has made its presence at Robogames
2008, India's entry into the Humanoid Race spear headed by BITS Pilani and its
passion packed alumni across the globe has truly started.

The next date for ACYUT is at Suzhou China July this year for the RoboCup
http://www.robocup.org/

About BITSAA: One among the top ranking universities in India today, Birla Institute
of Technology and Science - BITS Pilani which has the reputation of pioneering the
online examinations for admissions through the path breaking BITSAT and setting a
benchmark in industry university collaborations offers degrees in various
disciplines presently at Pilani, Dubai, Goa campuses and in the short future at
Hyderabad campus apart from an array of work integrated learning programmes for HRD
of a vast spectrum of Indian corporates. BITSAA is the alumni associtaion of the
Institute whose alumni are spread across the globe from Australia to America.

Web Site: http://www.bits-pilani.ac.in

Contact Details: Professor & Vice President BITSAA
BITS Pilani Rajasthan 333031 India
Phone 91-1596-242210
Fax 91-1596-244183
brnt@bits-pilani.ac.in
www.bits-pilani.ac.in