Students from five prominent engineering colleges here will soon get an opportunity
to work and develop such unique robotic applications
Think of a robot, which can be controlled from anywhere in
the world using GPS/satellite, or a robotic suit, which can be worn by a person
to lift extremely heavy weights that usually cannot be lifted by human beings.
How about a robot which can solve a Rubiks cube or Sudoku puzzle in less than 2
minutes or can fly, as in unmanned aerial systems Students from five prominent engineering
colleges here will soon get an opportunity to work and develop such unique robotic
applications as part of a joint initiative by iCarnegie, a nonprofit subsidiary
of the Carnegie Mellon University, USA, and Mumbai-based robotic education firm Technophilia.
On Tuesday (15th Nov), the iCarnegie-Technophilia combine signed MoUs with these
five colleges to set up a Centre for robotics and embedded system excellence (CRESE) at each of these institutions.
The CRESE lab and course material has been positioned as an attempt to bridge the
gap between theoretical teaching in robotics and embedded systems at the 5,000-odd
engineering colleges in India and the application-oriented studies that are so essential
to understand the real-life challenges faced by an engineer in the industry. These
centres will offer eight courses a one course module of 45 hours per semester involving
practical project development work based on curriculum certified by iCarnegie. Expert
faculties from Technophilia will impart training these courses, which will be optional
and are a part of the students extra-curricular activity to enhance his or her job
prospects. Technophilia managing director Hiral Sanghavi told reporters at the MoU
signing ceremony that the CRESE will be offered in the form of membership to the
engineering college students for a fee of $100 (Rs. 4,950) per semester of six months.
During this, the students will get full access to the CRESE facility, he said.
At the end of each semester, each student-member will receive a CRESE course completion
certificate from Technophilia, with certification for quality and effectiveness
by iCarnegie. We are looking forward to 200 students from each institution to be
part of these courses. Typically, these students will be from mechanical, electronics,
computer science and infotech engineering branches, considering that robotics and
embedded systems is all about a combination of studies in these branches, he said.
Sanghavi said, While we have limitations in reaching out to all engineering colleges
in India, we have plans to tie up with at least 150 colleges over the next couple
of years to set up CRESE. Under phase-I of this plan, we are tying up with 27 colleges,
five in Pune and the rest in Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mangalore.
Ron Shell, vice-president, iCarnegie Inc, said, We are familiar with the educational
system in India through our various collaborations with local universities. The
Indian students we have taught over the years have been some of the most motivated
and are particularly adept at using technology. The principals of MIT College of
Engineering (Vijay Wadhai), Vishwakarma Institute of Information Technology (Bilavari
Karkare), Bharati Vidyapeeths college of engineering (Anand Bhalerao), Maharashtra
Academy of Engineering, Alandi (Yogesh Bhalerao) and PVG college of engineering
and technology (Yogesh Nerkar) signed the MoUs on behalf of their respective institutions.
Courtesy: Times of India
