Robocon India

Robocon (short for Robotic Contest) is organised by Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU), a collection of over 20 countries of Asia Pacific Region. NHK, Japan had already been organising such contests at national level and also became the host of the first ABU Robocon in 2002. Since then, every year one of the member broadcasters hosts this international event.

The broadcasters of each participant country are responsible for conduct of their national contests to select the team which will represent their country in the International Contest. Teams from Engineering and Technological colleges are eligible for participation. Participating Teams are expected to design and fabricate their own robots and organize their teams including an Instructor, Team Leader, Manual Robot Operator and an Automatic Robot Operator.

Doordarshan, the national public service broadcaster organises National Robocon event every year and the winning team gets an opportunity to represent India at the international competition. First Robocon was held in 2002, in which only 3 teams had participated at IIT Kanpur. Going from strength to strength, this number has reached 66 in Indian National Robocon 2012 held at the Boxing Arena of Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, Balewadi, Pune.

Mumbai Kendra of Doordarshan has been organising National Robocon since 2005 with support from co hosts MIT Group of Educational Institutes. The initiative was taken by Mr Mukesh Sharma, the Director of Doordarshan Kendra Mumbai and Dr Sunil Karad, Executive Director of MIT Group of Institutions Pune, with approval of Dr Vishwanath D Karad, Founding Director General of MIT Group Pune.

Every year finals of Robocon India are held on First Saturday of March. The best engineering institutes across the country compete with each other for the honour of representing Indian National team at the International version of the competition for 3 gruelling days. Elimination rounds are held on days preceding the First Saturday of March. This routine schedule been fixed in India through mutual consultations of participating colleges and Doordarshan of India. International Contests are held in August every year when the national contests of all the countries have been completed and their representatives selected. The host country has the privilege of fielding two teams. India hosted its first international contest in August 2008 in the MIT Sports grounds, Pune. In 2014 again, India hosted the international contest on August 24. For last four years the National Robotics Championship has been organized in the famous Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, Mahalunge, Balewadi, Pune by a joint collaboration of Doordarshan and Maharashtra Institute of Technology Academy Of Engineering (MITAOE), Alandi, Pune.

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