Bangalore: Harshal Chaudhari, a final-year student of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, won the overall best project prize at the second annual JED-i Project Challenge awards on Friday for his prototypes of standing wheelchairs.
JED-i, which stands for the “Joy of Engineering, Design and Innovation”, is organized by Bangalore-based engineering education company LimberLink Technologies Pvt. Ltd in partnership with the Indian Institute of Science and Mint.
Prizes were given to final-year engineering projects in three categories—mechanical, electrical and computing, in addition to the overall best project award.
1st prize-Overall/mechanical
Project:Standing wheelchair
College: IIT-M, Chennai
Team member: Harshal Chaudhari
Guide: Sujatha Srinivasan
Top honours: Noted scientist Roddam Narasimha presents Harshal Chaudhari with the overall best project prize in Bangalore. Aniruddha Chowdhury/Mint
Unlike most other entries in the competition, this was a single-member project, and “this was one of the most difficult parts”, said Chaudhari. He developed two prototypes in less than one year. “I have learnt a lot of things during this project. Most importantly, about tolerance, design for assembly and, of course, a product’s design,” Chaudhari said.
2nd prize
Mechanical/computing
Project:Braille reader
College: PES Institute of Technology, Bangalore
Team members: Shyamal V. Harne, Samridh Srinath, R. Sandhyaa
Guide:Kavi Mahesh
Cited by the jury for being an “innovative and feasible portable device for the visually challenged”, the project is an e-book reader that overcomes the problems posed by existing products, including high cost and low portability. Electronic files are physically rendered into Braille characters.
“As computer science students, attempting such a multi disciplinary project was a challenge and it involved a lot of self-learning. It was a rewarding and enriching experience,” said Shyamal V. Harne.
Sandhyaa has a job offer from Google India, Srinath from Microsoft India, and Harne from Mercedes-Benz India. They are keen on work experience before considering a postgraduate programme. JED-i was an ideal platform to discover new ideas and receive high quality feedback, they said.
1st prize-Computing
Project:Multi-rotor UAV with GPS navigation
College: Nagarjuna College of Engineering and Technology, Karnataka
Team members: B.C. Naveen, N. Vikramaditya, R. Smitha and B.V. Soumya
Guide: H. Hemanth
Cited by the jury for being a “multifaceted and complex system engineered well and demonstrated well.”
The students wanted to demonstrate a military class unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that can be made at an affordable prize. The craft can navigate autonomously using a global positioning system (GPS) and track objects.
Describing their experience working on the project, B.C. Naveen said: “One word—dangerous! The motor speeds were reaching 75,000 RPM.”
They have great aspirations for their product. “Being an engineer means building a world with advanced technologies and being a responsible citizen of the country. We want to get the technology to the Army. If we can make it more user-friendly and more reliable, we can help save many soldiers’ lives,” Naveen said.
2nd prize-Computing
Project: Orchestra on multi-touch table
College: Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida
Team members: Ankur Agrawal
Guide: Sanjay Goel
Cited by the jury for “interesting application of multi-touch techniques”, this project aims at providing a digital interface for playing music instruments on a “multi-instrument, multi-instance basis which mimics the real life of acoustic instruments”.
As a violinist, he began to explore how he could implement his vision using multi-touch technology. He finally decided to base the multi-touch technology on webcam-based infrared imaging.
“While I was working on the project, I learnt that we can build complex technologies using simple building blocks. I came in contact with a lot of interesting people from whom I learnt about a lot of new technologies,” said Agrawal.
1st prize-Electrical
Project: Tri-netra: A wearable device for defence robotics
College: G.H. Patel College of Engineering and Technology, Anand
Team members: Utpal V. Solanki and Swapnil A. Solanki
Guide: Nilesh H. Desai
Cited by the jury for “excellent end-to-end engineering effort and concept demonstration, relevant to defence and other applications”, this project aims at enabling “a soldier’s head to control a robot and its orientation, and getting all-round information of the battlefield on a single eye-piece,” said Utpal V. Solanki. “We enjoyed playing the role of both electronics engineers as well as mechanical engineers.”
Utpal and Swapnil intend to pursue higher studies, with a particular focus on research.
2nd prize-Electrical
Project: Apparatus and method of gesture recognition
College: G.H. Patel College of Engineering and Technology, Anand
Team members: Pratik Bhatt, Nirav Faraswami and Devak Mehta
Guide: None
Cited by the jury for “innovative application with a high societal impact”, this project consists of using gesture recognition technology for applications such as providing gesture-to-voice capabilities for those with speech impediments, controlling home appliances, and controlling wheelchairs and mobile phones with gesture-controlled gloves. This is done without using image processing technology such as that found in Microsoft’s Kinect, a motion sensing technology used in gaming systems. The students said the project was developed with the intent to provide speech capabilities with cheaply available gesture-recognition devices. “Besides learning about design and marketing, we have also learned about protecting technical ideas by patenting the new concepts,” Pratik Bhatt said.
shamsheer.y@livemint.com
