Hi everyone,
I hope you’re doing well! I’m writing on behalf of CSD Robocon NITK, the official robotics team of NITK Surathkal. We are a group of passionate undergraduates who design and build robots to compete in ABU Robocon, one of the most prestigious robotics competitions in Asia.
Despite being a completely student funded team, our passion for robotics and engineering has driven us to new heights. After reestablishing ourselves post pandemic, we have:
- Consistently secured a spot in the ABU Robocon Nationals for the last three consecutive years, and have placed in the top 10 teams for the last two years.
- Successfully designed, built, and competed with multiple robots under intense deadlines and budget constraints. Our recent project involved a pair of robots capable of autonomously playing basketball, showcasing our expertise in kinematics, real-time control, and strategy.
- We have hands-on experience fabricating and integrating custom mechanisms, embedded control systems, and computer vision to solve dynamic and challenging problem statements.
- Some of our team members have consistently reached the final stages of Eyantra Robotics challenge for the past few years.
See our 2025 robots in action: https://youtu.be/nrbu7rRg0_0?si=lwaXv7HBG_Vp4VuO
This year’s ABU Robocon theme requires a sophisticated autonomous robot that must perform tasks involving picking and placing objects based off of the symbols printed on them, and navigating a complex field while making real-time strategic decisions to outplay the opponents.
To achieve this, our technical roadmap requires:
- Real-Time Object Detection & Tracking: We plan to implement a YOLOv5/YOLOv8 model for detecting game field elements and opponent robots, running at over 30 FPS for reactive decision-making.
- Sensor Fusion & Localization: We will use an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) to fuse data from wheel encoders and IMU to achieve centimeter level positioning accuracy on the field.
- Autonomous Path Planning: The robot will need to compute and execute optimal paths in real-time using algorithms like A* or D*, avoiding obstacles dynamically.
The parallel processing power of the Jetson’s GPU is essential for running these demanding AI/ML pipelines simultaneously, something a traditional microcontroller or Raspberry Pi simply cannot handle.
Our Proposal: A Partnership
We would be honoured to partner with NVIDIA. In return for a sponsorship/ student discount of a Orin Nano Developer Kit, we will proudly offer:
- Brand Visibility: We will feature the “Powered by NVIDIA Jetson” logo prominently on our robots, team jerseys, and all official presentations.
- Content Creation: We will write a series of technical blog posts or a detailed project report showcasing how we used the Jetson platform to solve specific engineering challenges, which can be featured on our website and shared with the NVIDIA community.
- Social Media Promotion: We will provide regular updates and shout-outs to NVIDIA on our social media channels (LinkedIn, Instagram) throughout our design, build, and competition season.
- Community Contribution: Upon completion, we would be excited to submit our project to the NVIDIA Jetson Community Projects page to inspire other students.
As a self funded student team, acquiring hardware of this caliber is our biggest challenge. Your support would be instrumental in not only helping us compete at the highest level but also in fostering the next generation of AI and robotics engineers.
We have a detailed technical proposal ready and would be happy to discuss this further. Thank you for your time and consideration.
We look forward to the possibility of collaborating.
Best regards,
Ranjit,
PR Lead,
CSD Robocon NITK
Email: robocon@nitk.edu.in
Team Website: robocon.nitk.ac.in