Bhubaneswar, Feb. 12: A team of mechanical and electrical engineering students from the Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER) have come together to design an all-terrain vehicle.
The innovative vehicle is believed to come handy for disaster mitigation teams.
This all-terrain vehicle willcompete with similar vehicles at the six-day Baja-SAEracing competition to be held at Pithampur near Indore in Madhya Pradesh from February 19. The students have already left for Pithampur to take part in the competition with their vehicle that weighs around 130kg.
The ITER is the only engineering college in the state that has qualified in the virtual round to take part in the competition.
Guided by the faculty of engineering of the Siksha O Anusandhan University here, the students have designed the vehicle in such a way that it can easily sustain extreme road conditions such as uneven terrain, ascent and descent high inclinations, traversing swampy roads that may offer extremely loose ground with minimum traction and stability.
The planning and construction of the vehicle took almost a year. The students were divided into groups and handed over various responsibilities. A student said that such events would help them put the theory into practical use. "It also helps us learn how to work in a team. We wish to take part in more such competitions, but at times, finding sponsors becomes difficult," said a student.
"We aim towin the Baja-SAE competition. It would help us establish sound relations with automobile companies and get sponsors for other revolutionary and promising projects that our team has been working on," said Bibaswan Satpathy, a technical student.
The team also aims to take part in international events that will help them broaden their scope and compete with more experienced teams, said faculty advisors S.K. Sarangi and M.K. Sarangi.
The Baja-SAE is an inter-collegiate design competition, run by the Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE) - in which teams from universities across the world design and build small off-road vehicles with engines of the same specification. The objective is to come up with such designs that can withstand the harshest elements of a rough terrain with ease.
The students thanked their sponsors CV Tech, Aircell, Mechem, ACE, ORW and Bikash Gases. The competition is beingorganised by Mahindra.
