The Centre for Innovation of Indian Institute of Technology-Madras on Sunday displayed some of its student projects that won international recognition in the last few months.
The CFI, a student-run laboratory, encourages student engineers to experiment and come up with solutions to real-world problems. IIT-M Director Bhaskar Ramamurthi, who inaugurated the open house said, “Many a start-up has emerged from the projects undertaken here. Walk in with an idea and walk out with a product. The projects on display this year include stellar efforts of students at the fledgling IITs at Tirupati and Palghat which are being mentored by IIT-Madras.”
Among the 40 projects on display were Mars Rover, which qualified for finals of the University Rover Challenge and was demonstrated at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah; a Formula race car, which won the top place among non-European teams in an international contest; and an intelligent ground vehicle that qualified in the annual international robotics competition conducted by the US Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Centre and the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.
Incubating start-ups
CFI Open House offers opportunities for students to network with potential mentors and facilitators, an institute official said.
According to B. Ravindran, CFI faculty-in-charge, the centre was an integral part of student life on campus.
“This serves as an introduction to the vibrant entrepreneurial eco-system in IIT-Madras, and several successful start-ups have been incubated from projects started at CFI,” he said.
Student executive head of CFI, Gaurav Lodha, who is in his fourth year of civil engineering dual degree, said around 350-400 students were part of the centre.
“In the first year, the centre is open to all students and they are briefed about the various activities and at the end of the first semester we shortlist students based on their ideas, enthusiasm and abilities. We have 14 clubs and six competition teams.”
The clubs represent each domain of engineering such as aeronautics, robotics or social entrepreneurship. “We follow a cycle where the students conduct workshops for juniors, who in turn nurture their juniors. The teams participate in international competitions every year. Some of the complicated projects have large teams of 30-40 self-motivated students,” Gaurav said.
“It is a 24x7 lab and entirely run by students. For all the technical work we get funding from the institute but for logistics and arranging for travel, we face difficulty. So far, we haven’t yet explored how to set up a donation portal. This year, for the first time we have seen visits from industry people and hope to receive support from them,” he said.