Informatics students showcase innovative assistive robotics at SDP Trade Fair

[03/04/2025] On Wednesday, 2nd April 2025, the School of Informatics hosted its annual Student Design Project (SDP) Trade Fair, exhibiting work of third-year students. Held in the Informatics Forum, the event showcased creativity and technological innovation, drawing a crowd of fellow students, supervisors, industry partners and the School of Informatics staff.

Informatics students showcase innovative assistive robotics at SDP Trade Fair

Real-life teamwork challenge

The SDP course challenges students to construct complex systems under conditions that simulate real-world teamwork. The course-ending Trade Fair provides an opportunity for the student teams to present the systems they have built. The attendees vote for their favourite projects, that are subsequently awarded prizes at the ceremony later that day. 

From interactive darts to solving the Rubic cube – the winners

  • 1st Place: Flightless – An interactive dart game using wristbands, eliminating the risk of dart holes in walls and doors. 
  • 2nd Place & Technicians Award: PoolPal – A pool-playing robot designed for a reduced-size pool table. 
  • Public Vote: CleanCaps – A keyboard cleaning robot for offices and labs. 
  • Peer Vote & Best Pitch: PiggyBank+ – An educational piggybank with interactive games and math puzzles to teach children the value of money. 
  • Best Live Demo:  RubiksCuber – A robot that solves Rubik's Cubes and teaches users, with multiple difficulty levels. 

The history of SDP

SDP’s history predates the establishment of the School of Informatics. It’s more than a taught course; it’s an institution within Informatics. The system to be designed in the project has varied over the years from robot shopping through Mars lander, robot mine clearance, and robot football to assistive robotics. 

This year's theme, "assistive robotics", inspired a variety of projects, from robots playing pool and solving Rubik's cubes to cleaning stairs and keyboards. 

A rewarding experience

SDP was a challenging and rewarding experience that taught us how to take an idea from concept to reality.

Our project, PiggyBank+, is an interactive educational tool designed to teach children the value of money through engaging math games. One of the biggest challenges was ensuring all physical components - like the 3D-printed sorting block, sensor placements, and the coin dispensing mechanism—were precisely measured and aligned to work seamlessly together. Winning the Peer Vote and Best Pitch prizes at the Trade Fair was a proud moment that made all the late nights worth it!

Sai Vaishnavi was part of the team behind PiggyBank+, winner of the Peer Vote and Best Pitch prize at this year's trader show. PiggyBank+ is a fun, educational toy designed to teach young children the value of money and the importance of saving. It features smart coin sorting, exact change dispensing, math mini-games, interactive change-making challenges, optional PIN control, and online parental tracking.

Working on CarromBot through SDP was a great hands-on learning experience. We faced challenges integrating hardware and computer vision for the first time, but collaborating closely as a team helped us overcome them and bring the project together in the end. It was rewarding to see our efforts come to life and share our work at the Trade Fair.

The course pushed us to step outside our comfort zones, apply our learning in real-world scenarios, and adapt quickly when things didn’t go as planned. We had to figure things out as we went, from getting the striker to flick reliably to troubleshooting why the vision system wasn’t picking up the right pieces. SDP was a great experience that not only strengthened technical skills but also gave us a new level of confidence in working through complex challenges as a team.

Aagoon was part of the team behind CarromBot, showcased at this year's SDP Trade Show. CarromBot is an automated opponent for Carrom, a classic tabletop game from India. Similar to pool or air hockey, players use a striker to pocket discs into corner pockets. CarromBot offers a fun solo playing experience.

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2025
Event
Student