103 bots built by school kids set 'world record'

• 
  
  
  (Above) Kids line up with their bots and (below) one of the girl participants  Sunish P Surendran

CHENNAI: A7.50 am, while most of us were fast asleep on a Sunday morning, 103 school-goers set a world record on Elliot’s Beach. Each student assembled their own ‘robot’ within 32 minutes and 16 seconds and rallied across the sand, as per the record recognised by the Assist World Records Research Foundation, based in Puducherry. Did we mention, the youngest robot builder in the crowd was all of eight?

No wonder these kids rely on Boost, instead of coffee! The massive event was put together by Kidobotikz, a robotics training institute in collaboration with event organisers, Ezone India. And the oldest kids on the block, 25-year-olds Sneha Priya and partner S Pranavan who founded Kidobotikz a little over three years ago, were spotted smiling from ear to ear. The institute was started after the two took a robotics course in college.  “With the kids so revved up now, it feels like they are driving us forward, instead of the other way around. So you can expect a Guinness record from us a lot sooner, than later.”

Before a thousand helium balloons hit the sky to mark the celebration, the crowd of parents and well-wishers at the beach were privy to a two-part event that kicked off as early as 6 am. The first part was ‘assembling’ the bots from scratch while racing against the clock, and part two was ‘driving’ these all-terrain robots from a starting point on the beach sand. Impressively, a majority of these bots would be run wirelessly. Thirteen-year-old Aditya Sridhar said, “It was very exciting. We never expected so many people to come out and watch the event.” Aditya can’t wait to upgrade his bot, and no surprises — his favourite superhero is Ironman!