We arrived at RoboFest with a plan. RoboFest arrived with its own ideas. What followed was a day filled with rapid
testing, quick adjustments, and valuable lessons in adaptability.
We reached the venue, completed the basic registration, and immediately began taking in our surroundings.
All around us, teams were already testing their drones, fine-tuning systems, and making last-minute adjustments.
Naturally, we joined the conversation—discussing different approaches, understanding how others planned to
execute their tasks, and seeing what they intended to showcase.
With testing happening everywhere, it felt only right to check our own system. We found a suitable spot and
started testing. That’s when the first surprise hit us. The GPS which had been pinpointing accurately during
our testing at Nirma, began showing heavy interference at the competition. Even after setting our own EKF
and parameters, the drone started drifting noticeably and felt far from stable. It was an unexpected shift
from everything we had prepared for.
To regain confidence, we immediately moved on to what we could control—our scripts. Thankfully, they
worked perfectly. A few scans were completed successfully, and that small win brought some relief. Around
the same time, two of our team members went to inspect the arena. What they discovered changed our strategy
entirely.
The arena was much smaller than anticipated. Executing a swarm flight would be extremely risky. Even reducing
the inter-drone distance from 7 meters to 2 meters wouldn’t guarantee safety—especially with GPS accuracy already
in question. That’s when we paused, stepped back, and made a crucial decision
Instead of forcing a swarm flight, we pivoted to a hand-gesture-based flight demonstration. Manav and Nishant
quickly got to work and developed new code for hand-gesture control. We managed to take just one test flight.
It wasn’t much—but it was enough to know we were on the right track.
After lunch, while waiting for our turn, we decided to test the simulation one last time. And once again,
RoboFest had a surprise waiting for us. The script suddenly began throwing errors and refused to run. For a
brief moment, it felt like the event was testing our patience more than our drone. But after some focused
debugging, the issue was fixed, and everything was finally ready.
We walked up to the judges with confidence.
During preparation, we had practiced taking off directly from the hand to demonstrate easy deployment and
autonomy.
However, due to safety concerns, the judges asked us to perform the takeoff from the ground instead. Without
hesitation, we adapted—and executed a smooth ground takeoff.
After the presentation and demonstration, we packed up and started walking away… only to realize we had left the
drone behind. For a split second, panic kicked in. One of our seniors immediately went back to retrieve it, and
all we could do was laugh at ourselves.
By the end of the day, we were confident in our proof of concept. The system worked, the decisions made sense,
and the results reflected exactly that.
