Noida-based Ayaan Suri and Shaurya Mahajan — members of Team Quadrex — are the newly crowned under-14 junior champions of RoboCup Asia-Pacific (RCAP) 2023, staged between December 5-9 (2023) at the Alpensia Convention Center in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Team Quadrex was among six teams invited from five countries to compete in RCAP 2023, after winning the RoboCup India nationals in Pune last February.

Organised by California-based RoboCup Federation, the RoboCup Asia-Pacific competition (estb.1997) is an annual event staged with the objective of attracting young techies from primary-secondary schools worldwide to showcase their talents in designing and building high productivity robots.

Thirteen-year-olds Ayaan and Shaurya, class VIII students of Noida’s Shiv Nadar School — ranked among India’s Top 10 co-ed day schools in the recent EducationWorld India School Rankings 2023-24 — have enthusiastically taken to computer programming and robotics which are on the curriculum for all children from class V onwards.
“We began learning about robots using Lego EV3 software. By class VII, we felt confident enough to participate in our first robotics competition — the World Robotics Olympiad (WRO), and successfully advanced to the national level. We are very grateful to our computer science, robotics teacher-mentors Kamini Sharma, Ganga Subramanian, and Pallavi Saran for their invaluable support and encouragement,” says Ayaan.

Last year’s RCAP 2023 required competing teams to develop an autonomous program and a robot capable of independently executing a rescue mission for trapped trekkers within an eight-minute deadline. During this short time, the robot was required to navigate challenging terrain following a black line and avoiding obstacles to rescue the trekkers and transport them to a secure evacuation zone.

Looking ahead, the duo is assiduously preparing for the 2024 edition of RoboCup Asia-Pacific after having qualified in the Nationals held in February this year. “After Plus Two, we intend to expand our knowledge in STEM subjects along with robotics,” says Shaurya, echoing his teammate’s sentiments.

Fair winds!