“Dude! I’m done with this. Let’s do some real research. Look at these reconfigurable drones. How cool they are!”, he said to me when we were doing a course assignment together. That’s when an imagination transformed into a creation. Or at least that’s when it started.
I was pretty new to research back then. I was juggling between vision, path planning and control. When he proposed this idea to build reconfigurable drones to me, my mind was fixed to it and all I did after that was to get myself equipped with the skills, knowledge and experience that would be required to work on it.
His vision was clear. He knew exactly what he wanted to do. He would call me out for a walk and initiate a discussion about how cargo carrying is so inefficient with existing drones. We would start brainstorming about the possible mechanisms that would solve the problem. We would go deeper and try to visualise the challenges that would arise while using our hypothetical mechanisms. Most of the time, we would come up with exaggerated ideas to solve almost all problems with the human race. A lot of laughter and happy moments would follow after every discussion.
We approached our supervisor immediately and proposed the idea. He was skeptical initially because he could see the level of dedication and perseverance required to realise such a project. He didn’t give us an assured go until Suraj demonstrated a toy model to visualize his idea. From that moment on, he had been one of the most supportive people towards this work.
There had been sleepless nights ever since then. Everyday would start with the implementation of a new idea, go on with constant arguments about which approach to proceed, and end with finding a new problem in the implementation. We used to window shop in all online electronics stored and then walk to the nearby gully to buy their inexpensive alternates. Our day wouldn’t end well, if we hadn’t told each other, “Stop scamming”. In fact, some days literally didn’t end. We had been sleep deprived for weeks trying to fix major problems.
It took a while to understand each other’s strengths and distribute the workload between us. When everything was at its peak, Covid also reached its peak. So, we had to take a pause. It wasn’t a comfortable pause to me. Restlessness and anxiety delayed my progress completely. However, he recovered from all his problems quite soon and focussed completely on getting the elasticopter (Roll Credits!!!) up and running.
For months he had to take a double shift and compensate for all the work that was lagging in my absence. I might have never had the courage, motivation, or determination to accomplish such a mammoth task alone. One fine morning, he called me and said, “I am ready to take it to air. Get ready to celebrate our success”. That and a few other doses of motivation helped me to recover from my slack and resume the pending works.
It was weird to access a camera fixed on the lab and his laptop screen from my home, and implement localization and control for the drone. It scared the visitors in my house, who saw a masked man handling mechanical objects in a closed room through the low resolution camera stream. That’s probably my best experience during the pandemic. When we finalised the localization system, the country opened interstate transport, which enabled me to get back to the research center.
We experienced a set of adventures carrying drones from the lab to various places inside the campus to test it. The stares of visitors, who saw our adventures were unforgettable. I knew back then that they wouldn’t be surprised to read about the project in newspapers. And now it is on everyone’s Google feed thanks to the support of IIIT’s incubation center, in which he had registered his startup.
Most exciting part about these news articles is our supervisor’s comment on the project. Back when we took one of his courses, he used to praise one of his former students, who had worked on a revolutionary project more than ten years ago. He said, “Once in a while, we get people like this, who go beyond what others can imagine. I am fortunate to have had him in the lab”. After the class, I told Suraj, “When the elasticopter starts flying, he is gonna tell the same about you”. But back then I never imagined that he would be telling a similar statement to the news media.
It has been a wonderful journey. It often reminds me of my favourite digital art. Please take a look at it. Follow your dreams. They do come true when you put your heart and soul into them.
Hello Viswa Sirr..
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