NIT Rourkela Team Wins First Prize at 'Robofest Gujarat 5.0'
NIT Rourkela student team comprising Raj Srivastava, Priyansh Agrawal, Sachin Pal, and Tanmay Rath, secured 1st position in the “Autonomous Maze Solver Robot” category (Senior Level) at 'Robofest Gujarat 5.0', held at Gujarat Science City in Ahmedabad.
The team was mentored by Dr Sadananda Behera (Assistant Professor, Electronics and Communication Engineering Department). The NIT Rourkela team developed an 'Autonomous Maze Solver RoBot' designed to explore large and complex mazes, intelligently identify the exit, and compute the shortest path from the origin to the destination.
Demonstrating exceptional technical capability and algorithmic efficiency, the team completed the entire challenge, emerging as the only team to do so in their category, with no second or third positions awarded. For their top performance, the team received a cash award of ₹10 lakhs at the final stage, along with ₹50,000 at the Ideation Stage and ₹2 lakhs at the Proof of Concept Stage. Hon'ble Shri Arjun Modhwadia (Cabinet Minister for Science and Technology, Forests & Environment, and Climate Change in the Government of Gujarat) presented the award to the team and appreciated their innovation. Prof. K. Umamaheshwar Rao (Director, NIT Rourkela) also congratulated the students and their mentor for this exceptional accomplishment.
Organized by the Gujarat Council on Science and Technology under the Department of Science and Technology, the 'Robofest' is among India’s prominent platforms for robotics innovation, bringing together talented student teams from across the country. The competition follows a rigorous multi-stage evaluation process, including Ideation, Proof of Concept (PoC), and Prototype development.
