BENGALURU: Students from two city engineering colleges have won accolades for their unique designs — a plane that can take off vertically and a car that can either run on a combustion engine or an electric one.
While students from MVJ College of Engineering bagged first prize at National Aerospace Conceptual Design Competition for their design of ‘Air Taxi’ — Inter-city Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing Aircraft (ICeVTOLA) — RV College of Engineering students clinched the top spot for their design of hybrid race car at the Formula Hybrid Competition held in 2021 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, USA.
Students of the aeronautical engineering branch at MVJ College of Engineering designed an air taxi that aims to make travelling convenient while reducing congestion on roads, improving safety and mitigating emissions.
The team comprised Keerthi GN, Amruthamshu KP, Koushik Udayachandran, Mithun Francis P and Atyab Hakeem. Their creation is similar to the conventional plane but can land and take off vertically, requiring less space to land and recover, making it runway independent.
The MVJ team, named Abhimanyu 4.0, was awarded a cash prize of Rs 20,000 and certificates. The competition was organised by the design division and Mumbai branch of The Aeronautical Society of India. Keerthi said their product is expected to enter the market in 2031 and they now plan to publish their paper. “Our design made the cut because it was not complex and ticked all the boxes of an innovative, eco-friendly option,” she said.
The Formula Hybrid Race Car designed by RV College of Engineering students won the Best Project Management award. A team of 29 students from Ashwa Racing — the racing division of Ashwa Mobility Foundation, a student research and development project undertaken by students of the college — took part in the virtual event. Members of the team conceptualise, design and construct various mobility prototypes.
Dhruv Gupta, the team captain, said their prototype won owing to their project plan, ideas and design. “Ashwa Racing has secured a podium since 2017 at the Formula Hybrid event and stood first in 2020 and 2021. This year, our car has a feature which gives the driver a choice to pick a combustion engine (petrol/diesel-powered) or electric engine as per requirement,” Gupta said. “A focus on sustainable green mobility development inspired Ashwa Racing to adapt in-house developed parallel hybrid architecture. The design certainly paves the path for a future with less dependence on fossil fuels,” he said.
Ravindra S Kulkarni, faculty advisor, Ashwa Racing, and prof and head, aerospace engineering department, RVCE, said the team has come a long way since its inception in 2003.
