PART-I Information relating to Department/Institute

Transcription

1 PART-I Information relating to Department/Institute 1. Name of Institute with complete address: Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay Powai, Mumbai Title of the Research Project: e-yantra Robot enhanced teaching in engineering colleges and schools (Phase 2) 3. Department/Broad Area: Embedded systems and Robotics in the department of Computer Science and Engineering 4. Major areas of research in the Department: o Developing content, curriculum, and pedagogy in Embedded systems and Robotics Designing projects and themes for hands-on experiments with robots; Delivering workshops to train students and teachers to handle robots through educational technology software tools such as Spoken tutorials, Moodle. o Studying the impact of workshops and lab set-up initiative on effective dissemination of Embedded systems and Robotics education Impact analysis and recommendations for efficient and effective use of resources to improve quality of hands-on training at engineering colleges throughout the Nation. o Deploying robots and embedded systems in the automation of day-to-day repetitive tasks; Use of robots in agriculture in green houses to automate the various steps in a plant s life cycle such as sowing, weeding, harvesting, etc. 1. Names and Designation of Principal Researchers in the major areas and list of publications during last 5 years based on work done in the Department: PI: Prof. Kavi Arya, IIT Bombay The resume of the PI has already been submitted to NME-ICT for the previous project (e-yantra (Phase 1)). 2. Is it Inter-disciplinary Project? Yes 3. Is it Inter-Institutional Project? No 4. Is any Industry/User agency participating? No 5. Brief of completed and or ongoing research projects supported by MHRD/AICTE in the Department during last 5 years. To be supplied when required. 1

2 PART-II Information relating to Department/Institute 10. Principal Investigator (a) Name: Kavi Arya (b) Designation: Associate Professor, Computer Science Department (c) Age: 53 (d) Educational qualification: Ph.D. (e) Experience: More than twelve years of teaching and research (f) Books and papers published: included in the resume of the PI submitted in the first phase of this project. (g) Is it a joint project with other Institution? : No (h) Has an MOU been signed? : Not relevant (i) Present commitments of the Principal Investigator i. Teaching: two courses a year ii. Ph.Ds registered under him: - iii. Sponsored research: - The first phase of this project - Building of an Indigeneous radiosonde (for Indian Army) iv. Consultancy: - (j) Other members of the research group to work on the proposed project: Prof. Krithi Ramamritham as advisor. PART-III About research project 15. About the research project: (a) Summary of the project: The objective of the project is to enable effective Embedded systems and Robotics education across engineering colleges in India, by Providing training for teachers and students -- through workshops where participants are taught basics of embedded systems and programming 2

3 Engaging teachers and students in hands-on experiments with robots -- through competitions where participants are given robots to devise a solution, and Helping colleges to set-up Robotics labs/clubs -- by awarding a basic set of robots and expert advice to colleges, facilitating setting up of labs, in addition to training their teachers through workshops. Phase 1: In Phase 1 we deployed the program through workshops and competitions in the following manner: 1. Conducted workshops for teachers and students; Students participating in the competitions are given workshop material in the form of video tutorials as part of a Robotic kit and are provided with on-line forums for clearing doubts. 2. Organized competitions as the best mode to reach out to students across the Nation and distributed robots to colleges through these competitions. Thus, e-yantra has achieved effective dissemination of both knowledge and the resource (robots) enabling students to implement Robotics projects in a scalable manner. Colleges in Mumbai region that participated in our lab setup initiative: 1. Pilot phase; teachers from these colleges were trained through workshops and teacher teams participated in the e-yantra Robotics teacher competition, where they were taken through all aspects of a Robotics project. 2. Participation in the competition provides them with hands-on experience of the robot and the know-how and confidence to assign Robotics projects to their students. 3. A starter kit of 5 Firebird V robots is given to these colleges in addition to consultation and recommendations for setting up Robotics labs. Through this model of providing support for both knowledge and technology transfer, we achieved the desired objective of having trained teachers who are able to effectively utilize the resources in the newly established Robotics lab at their colleges. In Phase 2, we propose to scale up the reach of Robotics education in the following manner: 1. e-yantra Robotics competition 2013: In the current edition of this competition, 1581 teams, each consisting of 4 members have registered, total number of participants being 6,324. Themes from the domain of Urban agriculture such as Seed-sowing robot, Weeding robot, Fertilizing robot, and Fruit plucking robot will be assigned to teams qualifying through selection tests taken remotely by each team member during a time-slot allocated to each team. These tests are scheduled from 12th 30th September Having conducted the competition in 2012 and 2013, it is clear that competitions is one of the best ways to reach out to students across the country in a scalable manner. e-yantra proposes to run the e-yantra Robotics competition as an annual event. While we have received registrations from almost all states of India, in order to encourage engineering 3

4 students from remote places to participate in the e-yantra Robotics competition 2013, we need to create awareness. We propose to create awareness using the following modes: 1. Conduct workshops in strategically located colleges in the remote regions. 2. Launch the second edition of e-yantra Ideas competition in this competition students present an idea to automate a task from their environment. Internships at e-yantra are awarded for the winning entries. 3. Hold press conferences and publicity through media. 2. e-yantra lab setup initiative Expansion phase: Training students is important as they are the future architects of our Nation; but training teachers and equipping colleges with appropriate facilities is even more important as one trained teacher produces many educated and enthusiastic students. Having a Robotics lab at every Engineering college is essential to imparting Embedded Systems and Robotics education, as hands-on experimentation is a mandatory component for effective education of these subjects. In order to achieve these goals it is essential to create an ecosystem of agencies to manufacture and support the robotic infrastructure in the field. The goal of this next phase is to scale-up and to sustain this process. In the first phase of scale up of the e-yantra lab setup initiative 20 colleges/institutes will be chosen as Nodal centers at different regions, from the set of colleges where e-yantra has already conducted workshops. The Nodal centers coordinate between the colleges in the region and they serve as hubs from where all e-yantra meetings and competitions will be held. Each Nodal center serves as contact center for colleges from the region, thus scaling up the reach of e-yantra lab setup initiative to over 500 colleges across the Nation. The following approach will be used for transfer of knowledge and establishment of infrastructure simultaneously: 1. Colleges from the region will be invited to the Nodal Center for participating in the initiative. 2. Colleges commit a team of teachers to be trained through a two-day workshop; this team also participates in the e-yantra Robotics teacher competition Through the competition teachers will be trained in handling the robot and implementing a project - this prepares them with the complete Robotics project life cycle helping them assign such projects to their students. 3. Each team that successfully participates in the competition is awarded a basic set of Robots to help their college start off the Robotics lab setup. 4. Colleges also commit funds to procure robots and accessories to establish a basic Robotics lab e-yantra provides the necessary consultation. 5. At the end of the e-yantra Robotics Teacher competition, trained teachers are ready to educate their students and assign robotics projects to students using the equipment from their newly established Robotics lab! 4

5 Figure below summarizes the three-pronged approach. Achieving)impact)) )A)30pronged)approach)for)the)colleges) ) )!WORKSHOPS!FOR! TEACHERS!!LAUNCHING))LABS))AND)STUDENT)PROJECTS) e/yantra!robo7cs!teacher! compe77on! Organized!at!a! centrally!located! college!!for!! nominated!teams! from!each!college! e/yantra!conducts! workshops!and! provides!support!!infrastructure! SET/UP!! College!commits!the! funds!and!space! e/yantra!provides!a! basic!set!of!robots!and! consultancy!to!set!up!a! Robo7cs!lab!! college!provides!its! teams!with!required! infrastructure! e/yantra!provides! robots!and!7me/to/ 7me!help!in!finalizing! themes!and!building! the!project! In order to engage with the engineering colleges after establishing the Robotics labs, e- Yantra proposes an annual e-yantra Symposium this is envisaged as an event where colleges share their experiences, projects, and research ideas in Embedded systems and Robotics. 3. Research and development -- Open source content creation Research and development is a staple activity at e- Yantra and is being expanded for (i) developing better training content, (ii) coming up with novel themes for competitions, and (iii) exploring state- of- the- art platforms and software tools. In order to create content, especially on new concepts and technology, the following resources are required: (i) Test beds for vetting new technologies and software tools: Example: We propose to test our various homegrown technologies in a live test bed greenhouse created in IIT Bombay. Concepts and applications such as - - Communication system design (use of Akash tablet), Scheduling of sensing and other activities in greenhouse, Image processing techniques for monitoring plant health, Artificial Intelligence techniques for anticipating pest and other problems, Remote monitoring system and fault diagnosis in greenhouses (both machinery and plants) - - will be tested. 5

6 (ii) Content creation team A technical team would convert the concepts and technology vetted in the test beds into teaching modules. These modules would be shared with the engineering colleges as workshop modules in advanced topics and hands- on training modules in new technologies and software tools. (iii) Content editing team Content design and video editing team will play the crucial role of appropriately editing the content created by the technical team into modules for consumption in open source. All the workshop material and projects implemented as part of the competitions for students and teachers are available on the e- Yantra website as open source content under the Creative Commons license. Additionally, applications that leverage equipment and tools from other Mission projects have been experimented with. For example: Aakash: Controlling Robotics applications using Aakash tablet has already been demonstrated through the I SPY application, where an Aakash tablet, remotely controls a Robot as it captures a video of its environment. Spoken Tutorials: Our core 2- day workshop is being converted to Spoken tutorials in order to facilitate training distributed teams competing in our competition across the country. FOSSEE: All the software we use, from the compilers to the tools such as Scilab are open source. 10,000 Teacher Training: Once the network of robotic labs is established in the colleges, we propose to teach our Embedded Systems course using this infrastructure. Synergies with other projects will continue to be explored as and when we understand how it might help our mission. b) Justification, importance of the project: Automation of repetitive, hazardous, and exploratory tasks is the core of cutting edge industrialization and engineering education around the world. Education that incorporates hands- on experiments with robots is the need of the hour for equipping our engineering students with skills to compete in the International arena. Our project aims to spread effective Embedded systems and Robotics education to engineering colleges across our Nation through training and support for setting up curricula based around Robotics labs at the colleges. The importance and justification of this project has already been elaborated in our previous project proposal, which has been successfully executed. 6

7 This project aims to substantially scale up the efforts to reach out to: i. Students and teachers through workshops and competitions, ii. Engineering colleges to provide support to setup lab facilities to impart effective Robotics education to their students, and iii. Create a repository of open source training contents, projects, and code in Embedded systems and Robotics. (c) Details of the work already done by the Investigators in this area: Status reports of the Pilot and Phase 1 of the project are attached herewith. 16. Overall Budget (in lakh): Overall budget for two years = Rs lakhs. Details of the budget are given below: Details of the budget (Amounts specified are in lakhs): Table below lists out the targets set for the project: Budget for e- Yantra activities (in lakhs) Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total Activities of e- Yantra e- Yantra Robotics Competition (eyrc) e- Yantra Ideas Competition (eyic) Internships and Projects Workshops e- Yantra Lab setup Initiative (elsi) e- Yantra Symposium (eys) Testing concepts/technology/tools Content creation/teaching modules Operating costs of e- Yantra Equipment Salary TA/DA Consumables and Contingency TOTAL PI consultancy (3%) of Total GRAND TOTAL

8 Table below lists out the targets set for the project: e- Yantra Deliverables Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total e- Yantra Robotics competition Targeted students 10,000 25,000 25, Selected for competition Teams participating in competition Robots distributed to colleges Teams identified for nurturing (finalists) e- Yantra Ideas competition Targeted students Entries received Internships Projects Workshops (12 workshops/year) Targeted colleges People made aware through training Lab setup initiative Regions targeted Colleges with lab setup Teachers trained e- Yantra Symposium Participating colleges Open source content Targeted students/teachers ,000 Embedded Systems course Targeted teachers 10,000 10,000 8

9 17. Recurring budget of the proposal along with item-wise breakup (in lakh) Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total Competition related e- Yantra Robotics Competition e- Yantra Ideas Competition Internships and Projects Workshops Lab setup initiative related e- Yantra Symposium (eys) Testing concepts/technology/tools Content creation/teaching modules Salary TA/DA Consumables and Contingency Detailed breakup of non-recurring items (Rs. lakh) Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total Equipment

10 Summary Sheet 1. Name of the Institution: IIT Bombay 2. Title of the Project: e-yantra Robot enhanced teaching in engineering colleges and schools (Phase 2) 3. Name of the Department: Department of Computer Science and Engineering 4. Cost of the Project: Rs lakh 5. Amount released earlier if any: The first phase of the project 6. Utilization position in respect of grants released earlier for various projects (Details to be given project-wise): Funds used and committed. 7. Reasons for unspent balance: All the balance money is already committed. 8. Name of the Principal Investigator responsible for implementation of the Project: Prof. Kavi Arya (NAME & SIGNATURE OF THE PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR) 10

11 Certificate from IIT Bombay Certified. that the Principal Investigator is not due to retirement during the currency of this project.. that the Principal Investigator is a regular employee of this Institution. However in case he/she proceeds sabbatical/resigns/proceeds VRS etc., the Institute will ensure to replace PI by a compatible academician to ensure that without any brake whatsoever, project will be completed within the stipulated period.. that it will be ensured that the implementation will be carried out on mission mode with no time or cost over run and we are aware that ministry will neither provide any extension of time nor additional funding.. that no overheads will be charges by the Institution for this project and all facilitation including other essential/infrastructure support like air-conditioning etc. will be provided by the Institution. Seal of the Institution Signature of Head of the Institution For Office Use Only 1. Name of the Area: 2. Recommendations: (a) Approved (b) Not approved (c) Deferred Amount (Rs. - in lakhs) (d) Transferred to area 3. Remarks, if any (common for all the 3 schemes) 11