From remote Baloch towns, young Pakistani creators of humanoid bot unveil ‘Bolani’

From remote Baloch towns, young Pakistani creators of humanoid bot unveil ‘Bolani’

QUETTA: It’s an unlikely trio in an unlikely place — two smart young Baloch students stand proudly outside their university in Quetta with an all-white, 5-foot, 4-inch humanoid robot between them. Aziz Ullah Shahwani, 24, and Mukhtiar Ahmed Rodini, 25, are physics students at the University of Balochistan, and the robot they created, named Bolani, is their final project. “I didn’t take any interest in technology-related experiments until I graduated school due to the absence of a physics teacher in my native district Kalat, but when I came to Balochistan for my master’s degree in physics I decided to invent something new, something no other student in the history of the university has done,” Shahwani told Arab News. Coming from the remote Kalat and Sorab districts in Pakistan’s restive southwestern Balochistan province, Shahwani and Rodini are largely self-taught, and said that they received close to no financial support during their endeavor from their university or the government of Balochistan. The two boys from distant Pakistani towns worked for six months to conquer the impossible, working on advanced 3D software, and even welding and painting the body of their robot themselves. “While making Bolani, I learned the use of new software