Drone Racing League at Chitkara a big hit

When it comes to top speeds, they would have little chance against a sports car. But they can accelerate from zero to 170 km/min less than two seconds. The attraction of Drone Racing sport is easy to spot: high speeds crashes increasingly complex tracks and more dimensions to work with than ground-based racing.

Season 1 of the Indian Drone Racing League, organised by Chitkara University, from November 16-18, 2018, was a huge hit with the participants and audience at campus grounds in Punjab. The first-of-its-kind in the city, the Drone Racing League was inaugurated by Hon’ble Vice Chancellor Dr. Madhu Chitkara.

Nine drone pilots, from all over the country, participated in the event and put up a great fight. Participants wore head-mounted devices that show live footage from the camera attached to their drones, which they fly across a course of obstacles involving intricate turns, flips and rings as fast as possible. The competition tests the participant’s skills to make split-second movements using their controller’s joysticks which impact the direction, pitch, speed, and tilt of the drone.

Devanth from Jaipur was declared the winner of the Indian Drone Racing League and was awarded prize money of Rs. 35,000. Siddharth Nayak from Mumbai secured the second position and was awarded a cash prize of Rs. 25,000, followed by Ritvik Naserigi from Mumbai who was placed third and awarded Rs. 15,000.