JOIN USIIT-Madras students on Sunday had set about creating an Asian and Indian record for deploying largest number of robots for floor cleaning.
Nearly 250 students from several disciplines at the Centre For Innovation (CFI) fabricated about 50 robots at a workshop organized at IIT-Madras.
The robots consisted of a high-RPM motor at its heart with two rotating scrub pads shoveling the dust into the central suction system and a filter in the vacuum tunnel collecting the waste.
The robots were controlled over Bluetooth by an app created for the Android system. A proximity ultrasound fixed to the robots ensured they did not collide.
All the robots cleaned the floor non-stop for five minutes (simultaneously) to set the record. NO manual intervention was allowed inside the cleaning area during the exercise.
Representatives of Asia Book of Records and India Book of Records adjudicated the event. Both organizations had issued a detailed set of guidelines to conduct the event according to 2018 Edition of International Protocol of Records (IPR).
Speaking about the effort, CFI faculty-in-charge Prof B Ravindran said the record was the latest in a list of astounding feat by the robotics groups at the Centre.
"Another major aim of this attempt is to sustain, spread and strengthen the concept of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Initiative) by some of the most skilled students in the country's Premier Engineering institute," he added.