Six students of Rajalakshmi Institute of Technology have come together to set up a company on campus. Vipra, a 3D printing facility, is the brainchild of the final-year students of mechanical engineering.
The idea of a company took roots through the institute’s entrepreneurship development programme, according to the institute’s director Haree Shankar Meganathan. Each of the six students has invested ₹7,000, which they say could be recovered before they graduate.
Each class in the final year must do a project, for which they will need materials. A 3D printing machine in the college would not only cut costs for the student but would also offer training in the process for the students, explained N. Anand, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, under whose guidance the students have launched their start-up.
The students, K.M. Mithleshvarr Raj, V. Lakshmipathy, M. Praveen Kumar, P. Manikandan, S. Pradyumna Rao and M. Naresh, have divided the work among themselves.
The students have started to print and sell personalised and customised items, besides components for student projects or faculty’s research work.
“We had to hit our books to do a return on investment analysis, break even analysis or to even perform a cost estimation of our products by considering various factors,” said Lakshmipathy.