The AcYut-II robot co-sponsored by Force10 Networks (News - Alert) and designed by students from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (BITS Pilani), India, has won the Bronze medal in the middleweight Humanoid category at the 2009 RoboGames.

 

Force10 Networks provides reliable next generation infrastructure required to build and secure intelligent services networks. A top ranking private university in India, BITS Pilani has the reputation of setting the benchmark for industry-university collaboration and pioneering online examinations.

 

The world's largest open robot competition, RoboGames, has 70 different competitive events and more than 250 teams from 28 different countries participate in RoboGames. The first humanoid from the team at BITS Pilani was placed 6th at the 2008 competition. The second humanoid, AcYut-II was built within the institute itself by the Center for Robotics and Intelligent Systems (CRIS).

 

According to Prof. R.K. Mittal, deputy director of BITS Pilani and the team’s guide, they are proud that the only Indian-built humanoid robot participant in this contest was able to get this award.

 

Mittal also added that the sponsors Force10 Networks and Sierra Atlantic have helped foster the education of their students, enabling them to take these acquired skills and apply humanoid robotics into other areas of business, medicine or science.

 

The BITS Pilani sponsorship represents the continuing commitment of Force10 Networks in supporting educational causes both domestically and internationally.

 

Force10 has been awarding wireless-enabled laptop computers to a select group of high school seniors awarded with the Horatio Alger Scholarship for the past two years. According to Steve Garrison, vice president of marketing at Force10 Networks, the were able to see first-hand the amount of talent that BITS Pilani produces because of their strong belief that tomorrow’s innovators are shaped by the experiences of the real-world projects.

 

By supporting reliability, network control and scalability, the Force10 product portfolio enables enterprises to lower their total cost of ownership and optimize their networks both for current needs and future requirements by building a flexible network that is ready to support emerging and evolving applications.