Pune students have Jasper ready for delivery

Eight Pune school students on Thursday, unveiled a robot, Jasper, that can process commands in three languages and deliver an object loaded into it to a specified location.

This may be a small bot in the hi-tech multiverse, but it could be a big step for Pune’s next-gen computer geeks.

The students built and wrote the program for Jasper under the guidance of SP Robotics Maker Lab, Kharadi, Pune.

The inspiration for Jasper, according to Omana Nair, project director, is e-commerce site Amazon’s fleets of robots at work in warehouse across the world.

The aim, a month ago when the project began, was simple.

Create a functional mechanised being that can take a command, deliver an object to a specified location.

At Thursday’s preview, Jasper seemed to be able to a little bit more than that.

Jasper’s creators, the eight students, all between the ages of 12 and 16, are - Zoya Bothra, Akansha Sarma, Subhojit Gosh, Krishna Dubey, Neelesh Raina, Tanishq Sarda, Shruten Pande and Shourya Singh.

Subhojit Ghosh, a Class 7 student, says, “We will now implement concepts learnt into a bigger robot which will be used in real time.

“This provides a real challenge and makes me feel like a real engineer.

“We will work on this robot continuously and load it up with sensors to avoid objects, follow paths, GPS navigation and more.

“We want the robot to be deployed on the streets for short deliveries within a locality. We have big plans for it to be completely automated, safe and secure for use.”

Akansha Sarma, a Class 5 student, says, “During development we faced various hurdles and there were technical issues while monitoring its functions. We did several trials before finalising Jasper and now, we are happy with the results. We will certainly keep developing new features in the future.”

The official launch of the robot will take place on June 18 at the WNS ground opposite the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Ahmednagar road at 5 pm.

Mukesh Malhotra is managing director of Weikfield Products Corporation and a weekend student at the robotics lab that gave birth to Jasper. “These children have developed this robot and it’s amazing. We want to felicitate these youngsters for having done something quite unusual. This robot can actually go and handover water bottles to people.”

Jasper has a base structure where its “brain”, motors and battery are housed, along with a compartment to store items.

It has a face and can accept commands in three languages – English, Marathi and Hindi. It is controlled via bluetooth, though complete autonomy is still an upgrade away.

Omana Nair says“We felt it’s important to make students implement and use tech for the good of people. I am proud of my students and am sure they will be doing more in the future.”

SP Robotics Maker Lab is a robotics learning centre in India. There are three types of courses offered to students from age seven and above – Robotics, Internet of Things and Virtual Reality. Eight SP Robotics centres across the country have been working on creating a ‘delivery robot’, of which, Kharadi in Pune delivered.