Host institution/organization in Japan:
Kyoto University
Graduate School of Engineering,
Mechanical Engineering and Science
Prof. Fumitoshi Matsuno
Maｙ-July 2019

"Japan is an outstandingly organized & amazingly beautiful country. I did satisfactory amount of travelling covering the major cities like Tokyo, Nara, Osaka and Kyoto, where I stayed for 10 weeks. Kyoto is extremely beautiful and it beholds the essence of Imperial Japanese culture. There are numerous world heritage sites and at such close proximity that you can easily take a bike and cover most of the attractions. Not just Kyoto, infact every city in Japan boasts a sophisticated and exceptionally punctual transportation system. This made travelling very convenient and ofcourse then you have the mighty Shinkansen! My project was to design, simulate and manufacture a robot (a quadruped robot leg) to conduct experiments and implement several bounding gait algorithms in order to validate my mentor’s latest research work. I was solely responsible for design and simulations so it was an intense yet exciting experience as I had to present my ideas in front of all lab members during weekly lab seminars. Everyone was very supportive and I received constructive suggestions which eventually helped me to hone my skills. Regular Lab seminars really helped me to capture the diversity in the field of robotics as researchers working in different verticals presented and discussed their work. One of the major best part of my internship was the amount of cultural exposure I got by interacting with people from diverse ethnic backgrounds and nationalities. I was amazed by Japanese etiquettes and the way they communicate even with strangers. Foooood! I absolutely loved it! Can’t really disclose what all I ate; p but definitely it was a roller coaster ride every time I tried anything new. Which reminds me of Osaka and Tokyo and their gigantic entertainment parks! I also received great amount of help and support by Hardik Parwana, a 2016 batch Y-E-S Plus Awardee who is pursuing MS in the same laboratory. During the internship, Honda Foundation also organizes a Get-Together event where every Y-E-S awardee from all the countries present in Japan are invited. The event is held in Tokyo and numerous networking and fun activities are conducted so as to make you familiar with other members of Y-E-S community. To sum up, my overall experience was very overwhelming & I will highly recommend future awardees to opt for Y-E-S plus."