Mysuru: The annual e-Yantra robotics competition concluded with the finals held at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, last month.

Four teams from Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering (SJCE) comprising 3rd and 4th year B.E students from the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering successfully reached the finals of the competition, faring amongst the top 0.5% of all participants from institutions across the country.

Ronak, P. Rohit, Shashank Rao and Sangameshwar bagged the 2nd prize in designing a Harvester robot (to harvest the crop); Pavan Kalyan, R. Manoj and Krishna Raju came 3rd for building a transporter robot (to transport finished crop); Akshay Krishnan, Ashish Farande, Bharat Manvi and Chetan Chinder stood 4th in designing a Collector robot (to collect fruits) and Murugendra, G. Venkatesh, Venkatesh Prasad and Ranganatha Gowda came 5th for their Planter robot (to plant seeds).

This year, the competition presented students with challenges from different themes pertaining to the use of robots in the field of agriculture. The competition started in September 2017 and consisted of four stages of evaluation.

The students are an integral part of the e-Yantra robotics and embedded systems laboratory at SJCE that is supported both by e-Yantra and TEQIP (Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme), working on ongoing research projects in this field.

The lab is coordinated by Prof. Sudarshan Patil Kulkarni with support from Head of the Department of Electronics Dr. N. Shankaraiah, Principal Dr. T.N. Nagabhushan and Vice- Chancellor of JSS Science and Technology University Dr. B. G. Sangameshwara, according to a press release from Pradeep Manjunath of SJCE.