16 Oct ‘Our Drona can shoot and climb’: Mumbai teens on representing India at a global robotics challenge

Five Mumbai teens from underprivileged homes, who are in Geneva to represent India at the robotics challenge, speak to mid-day about why their mean machine is one-of-a-kind.

It’s been a hectic few months for Rohit Sathe, Pritam Thopate, Sumit Yadav, Paras Pawade and Nikhat Khan. The quintet, all aged between 14 and 17 years, have been clocking in nearly 10 hours every day at The Innovation Story lab in Dadar, building a one-of-kind robot that can “catch, throw and climb”. The day we meet them over a video call, they are a few hours shy of flying to Geneva, where their masterpiece, Drona, will compete with robots from 180 countries for the big prize at the FIRST Global Challenge—known as the Olympics of the Robotics World—taking place between October 13 and 16.