The fact that Bangladeshi students can make robots of intentional standard is no longer news now. Every year students from colleges and universities all over the country are designing new robots and are competing internationally.
Even school students are taking up the passion of making robots and are performing wonders. One such proud robot from Bangladesh in 2014 has been ‘Mongol Barota’ made by 11 students and 4 faculties from Military Institute of Science and Technology (MIST) . The robot secured 12th position out of the 31 teams across the globe in the University Rover Challenge 2014 (URC-2014). If the 12th position does not sound so great, let us not forget the fact that most teams that participated in the completion were from the technologically developed part of the world such as USA and Europe. And ‘Mongol Barota’ has defeated all 19 of them.
URC, an international robotics competition is arranged every year by the Mars Society for university and college students. The teams in this competition have to build robots that can perform specific tasks in an environment similar to that of Mars.
This is a way of challenging the young robot makers to build robots that can be sent in space to know more about our universe. The competition has been held in the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in USA where the geographical condition is almost similar to Mars.
This year 31 teams from 6 countries spanning 4 continents took part in the competition. The MIST team titled ‘Mongol Barota’ participated in the URC-2014 as the first team from Bangladesh and the second from Asia. This is just another demonstration of what youngsters from Bangladesh are capable of. Well, they
have proved their capability of making robots as good as any part of the world.