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| BIT-Sindri students along with the bike. (Gautam Dey) |
A team of BTech students of BIT-Sindri has developed a Quad Bike, a four-wheel all-terrain vehicle weighing 200kg, and is all set to showcase it at a contest in New Delhi from August 2 to 4.
The bike, which notches up a maximum speed of 100kmph on all kind of surfaces, including snowy, rocky and muddy, has been built by 25 students at a cost of Rs 2.85 lakh over four months.
On Wednesday, the team, led by Harishankar Prasad, a final year mechanical engineering student, left for Delhi to take part in Quad Torc, a contest organised by Indian Society for New Era Engineers at SRM University ground, Modi Nagar.
“We started working on the vehicle soon after getting the rule book from the society about four months back. First, we worked on the design and after it was approved by the society, we went ahead with assembling the bike,” said Prasad.
His team, each of whom pitched in with Rs 8,000, to build the corpus to buy parts and equipment for the bike, then went on to work night and day at the BIT workshop for the next four months.
While BIT-Sindri contributed Rs 35,000, alumni, under the aegis of Automobile Society, provided around Rs 50,000 for the successful completion of the project.
Prasad said the team was working from experience. “Having developed a free-style formula racing car in 2012 and all-terrain vehicles in 2010 and 2011, we decided to do something different and get registered for Quad Torc which is being organised by the society for the first time in the country.
Team member Jitendra Kumar said two teachers, Rajan Kumar and Manoj Kumar, helped guide them, while director S.K. Singh always boosted their morale whenever they met a dead end.
“Normally, we used to work in the evenings after 8pm. Sometimes, however, we worked through the night as we had classes during day,” said Prasad, adding that it was extremely difficult to manage during their semester exams.
On the vehicle, Prasad said they had cannibalised parts and equipment used in bikes (like Bajaj Pulsar) and car (Alto) for the project.
The team, which made it a point to crash test the final product for front impact, rear impact and roll-overs, is hopeful of a good show in the competition which has announced attractive prizes.
The Quad Torc champion is looking at a cash prize of Rs 80,000, while the runners up will get Rs 40,000.
There are more cash awards in various categories like Rs 15,000 each for best design, best skid pad, auto cross, endurance and fuel economy and innovation.
This apart, Rs 10,000 is up for grabs for the best driver, best team captain and for the teams with the best suspension and best business plan.