My champ - Nataansh's MakeX International Championship - 2019 Journey

How did it start?

This was months back that we got to know about IB Academy in Vadodara that runs classes on Robotics. Nataansh being very much interested started with their weekend programs and completed 4 levels in just a few months. One fine day the coach,  Mr. Dinesh Singhvi mentioned about MakeX International competition being held in India for the very first time. I was a bit confused whether my junior was ready for competing at this level of his understanding. Since the platform is huge and internationally renowned, I then thought that making him just participate would be a great exposure for him. Nataansh was hesitant too because of the overall hefty cost, where I made him understand on this event as a long term investment in his career. I wanted him to have trust in his coach and himself, and do the best he could, learn as much as he can and results will be delivered accordingly. 

Upon our confirmation for interest in participating in the event, Dinesh sir started the registration process, got the required kit from MakeX and organized the weekend sessions accordingly so that interested kids can start and come for practice. There were 8 students who approached him from his regular weekend batch to this event participation. These kids were from different schools across Vadodara. The sessions were very interesting for the kids and Nataansh was actively participating in the sessions. Since he had his school and tuition timings blocked for most of the work days, he could not visit the classes during these days which were scheduled during evenings. Somehow he managed to spend time during weekends. Whenever Saturdays were off in school, he got some more time to practice. As per Dinesh sir all he needed was to do enough practice which was way less than other students. The missions related to competition were already declared by MakeX. These missions had a lot of programming and logic involved where the kids had to write commands on computer, connect the robot with the computer and upload it to robot so that the robot can follow the commands. The program mostly contained commands related to line follower (i.e. sensing the lines) and objects that come in the way and act as per the commands written to perform actions to move obstacles, gauge the distance of an object and move the other one at a similar distance etc.. Programming them was not much of a problem. But handling speed, precision in directions such that it doesn’t deviate from its path, using appropriate commands was most important, and that would come only by lots and lots of practice. 

As the days went by, the competition dates were coming near by and so were the school exam dates. It was quite tiresome following the schedule of school, study, homework, attending tuitions, exam preparations and then robotics classes for practice. He was busy for almost 18 hrs during the entire week including weekends. He, at the age of just 13 years had started getting snoring sleeps, were my wife and myself were feeling pity on the poor kid. But back of the mind we knew that all we are doing is an investment towards his aspiring future in which he is very much interested in too. Every time when I asked him about his current experience, he mentioned that he was enjoying it, which gave us a lot of relief.

Round 1 - Regionals

Now here comes the first surprise. His school exam schedule and the competition dates have arrived. The first round of MakeX, Regionals was organized on his last exam date. We talked to the school management to see if something can be done so that there is not a spot on his exam results. They said it would be marked as absent and we did not have an option but to continue with the competition. 

The first round - Regionals was organized on 19th October 2019 at Podar International School, Santacurz, Mumbai. To get him sufficient rest, we arrived at Mumbai the previous day to the competition. We had booked a hotel for stay near to the school. Nataansh had mixed feelings, excitement and nervousness since it was his first ever competition related to Robotics. He held his nerves and we attended the regionals. He performed very well and got selected for the next round. In fact, all 8 students of IBAcadamy out of total 52 teams got selected for the next round. Not only kids but even the parents were very much happy with this first stage achievement of the kids. I felt very proud of him and was relieved that his efforts paid him back. We had planned an additional day stay at Mumbai so that we can roam around. We visited some famous places of Mumbai the same night. It was a very wonderful environment and an equivalently great mood to give ourselves a treat and refresh ourselves.

Round 2 - Prep

We were back to Vadodara and the very next day the preparations for round 2, Nationals started. It was Diwali vacation back at school. So it was a bit relief for my kido and allowed him to concentrate 100% on the preparations for the second hurdle. He used to start his day at the robotics class at 10 a.m. in the morning and practiced there until 9 p.m. This gave him enough confidence to participate and compete in the Nationals round. 

Round 2 - Nationals

It was the 9th of November when the Nationals were organized at EuroSchool, Airoli, Navi Mumbai. This time too, the trip was well planned and we reached Mumbai the previous day and stayed near to the school so that the commute becomes easy. Saturday (9th Nov) was the qualifier round and top 20 lists would go to the next round on Sunday which will give them the teams to be selected for International tournament. The teams were categorized at three levels, Starters/Elementary, Intermediate and Challengers based on age criteria.

All 8 kids were registered for Elementary level. There were internal practice sessions in the morning and then participants got 10 minutes to test their robot on the actual pit area. Nataansh was confident enough since morning that he will be able to give his best. The twist for this round was, this round wasn’t a solo one. Each team will have to work in partnership with an alliance decided by the organizing team. A list of this alliance was already shared the previous day. ‘Trailblazers’, his alliance had been participating and winning tournaments since a while. They were experienced enough and had two participants in the team, whereas Nataansh was solo in his team ‘Sprinter’. During the competition, the alliance team played politically and did not perform in a big sub task considering that their good performance would increase Nataansh’s score too. Nataansh did not give up here and performed his best to clear the qualifier round and scored 11th rank out of 100+ teams.  This was a great achievement and efforts well paid.

Round 3 - Final round Prep

All 8 of them were in full stress now and since they reached at this level, which they did not even think of, they became even more ambitious. The same evening of their National round, they wanted to start their preparations and practice for the Finals. Kids rushed to the hotel rooms, refreshed themselves, setup the arena and started practicing again. The focus now was on precision and accuracy for the same missions. Only limited teams were to be selected in the finals and these selected teams would be taken at International tournament held in China. All of them practiced till 2 a.m. and took rest till 6:30 in the morning. 

Round 3 - National Final round

Here comes one more twist for my dear Nataansh. Since this round was an evaluation for eligibility for International round, the criteria were more strict and inline to how the International guidelines would work, to make sure no one gets disqualified after reaching there for any reason. Due to his age, i.e. 13+ years, he was moved to Intermediate from Elementary category which he had been competing with. He will have to compete with the big boys now instead of starters. Plus the game was to be played with random alliance and both teams within the alliance need to perform equally well. The highest score of both of them would be counted. Two rounds would be played by these alliance teams with both manual and automatic challenges. 

(Sneak pic of the first round)

Round 1 was a disaster where the parts of his robot fell down multiple times which consumed a lot of his time fixing them. This wasted time would have given him chance to score more. He fine tuned his bot, did some rigorous practice and came back well in Round 2. The alliance scored 345 points. They stood 4th at National level as alliance with a tight score difference.

All in all, it was a great journey where none of us, neither the 8 kids or their parents nor the coach thought that all the kids would be get silver medals. 

Seeing my kid Nataansh at 4th position at National level robotics tournament which at International standard.

Recognition

Nataansh’s robotics coach Mr. Dinesh Singhvi has been running his business since quite a while now. He understands how to promote and appreciate the good results that come out. He managed to create a small blog of the entire journey of these 8 kids and how they reached at this level. He has shared the same article to a couple of press personals. The article has been published in a few Newspapers. 

Here’s a glimpse of the same;

There was a video interview as well from VNM, a local news channel with these kids and their mentor. Here’s the link for the same