NO CHILD’S PLAY: Remote-controlled cars burn rubber at racing event in city

Coimbatore: Unlike the fancy remote-controlled cars you buy from fancy stores, those built by engineering students for a remote-controlled car racing event in the city on Friday had no shiny body to cover the internal combustion engines, coated in grease and dust.
Ten teams from engineering colleges across Tamil Nadu, who participated in the Nitro RC Racingorganized as part of Yugaman annual inter-college techno cultural festival of Kumaraguru College of Technology, had spent as much as Rs 1lakh each to make the cars.

“Most of the cars were designed and built by the students. The event was conducted to test the mechanical skills and ability of the future engineers,” said K Akilan, student president of the Mechanical department of the college.

To test the stability of the cars, the participants had to complete three rounds of 250m races, filled with hurdles.

The event gave an opportunity to learn the concepts of mechanics and develop skills better than a classroom, said S Sri Ranganthan, a member of the team from the College of Engineering, Guindy. “It took us one-and-a-half years to build the car. But, we spotted several errors and are working on to fix them,” he told TOI. “We had spent Rs 1lakh to procure the internal parts. We will need more money to upgrade it. We hope to do so with the prize amount.”

U Aravind Kumar from Sri Krishna College of Technology said his team changes the design of their car based on the terrain where the competition is held.