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The endurance test at VAHAAN 2012. (Bhubaneswarananda Halder)
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A team of engineering students of the MCKV Institute of Engineering (MCKVIE), Howrah, organised VAHAAN 2012, an off-road robotics event from October 14 to 16, which was open to both college and school students. The aim was to teach young enthusiasts the basics of robotics and also how to manufacture their own bots from scratch.
The three-day meet saw participation not only from students of automobile and mechanical engineering but also from IT and computer science.
“We have an all-girls team from first year, computer science, which is one of the best teams so far. We have tried our best to encourage students from other streams to take part and the response has been very positive,” said Rahul Sarraf, the student coordinator for the event.
About 40 teams from various colleges, including Techno India, Aliah University (Salt Lake) and Dr BC Roy College of Engineering (Durgapur) participated in the event. Day one saw theoretical presentation of the projects, out of which 24 teams got shortlisted for the second round.
Day two hosted the endurance test, where teams were made to run their robots on a 3m-long mock track marked with obstacles. “This was the most challenging part, where students had to ride their robots on an off-road track consisting of mud, sand, bridge, water, speed breaker and other obstacles. The person holding the remote was blindfolded and had to control the bot with the help of instructions from teammates,” explained Shankar Chakraborty, the faculty coordinator at MCKVIE.
Students were seen screaming with joy as their robots took off for the endurance test. “It is a great experience to be able to display our designs and get to know the flaws in our machines. The presentations have boosted our confidence and I feel we are getting groomed very well before we face the competitive world out there,” said participant Priya Sultania, a B.Tech student at MCKVIE, who presented an automobile design meant for heavy goods loading.
Day three saw the teams explaining their marketing strategies for their designs before a judges’ panel that consisted of faculty members of the institute. “The winning team will get a chance to represent its college at the national level,” explained student coordinator Rahul.
Teams were judged on nine criteria — cost, design, innovation, creativity, endurance, hill climbing, presentation, marketing and figure of eight. Team Techtigus from the Bankura Unnayani Institute of Engineering was adjudged the best overall performer.Come February, team MCKVIANS will be off to Baja SAEINDIA, a national-level inter-college off-road vehicle designing and manufacturing competition organised by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) India at Pithampur, Madhya Pradesh. MCKVIANS is the only team from West Bengal to have qualified for the main event since the inception of the competition in 2007.
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