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A blend of academic work with practical engineering skills

FORMULA CAR CONTEST: Delhi College of Engineering students have designed and developed a small single-seat racing car

They have a glorious history in the International Formula Student Competition series. If in 2002 their team bagged the "Best Endeavour" award in its very first attempt, this past year the 13-member group from the Delhi College of Engineering (DCE) were the first runners-up in the "Cost Effectiveness" category.

For students of DCE -- who have been representing Asia in the formula race car contest for the past four years -- the ultimate compliment came from former Ferari F1 technical director Ross Brawn who thought their formula car "Defianz" was an "excellent effort".

The Formula Student Competition is an annual contest organised by the Society of Automotive Engineers and Institution of Mechanical Engineers that challenges university students to design, build, develop and market a small single-seat racing car.

The contest is aimed at providing students a real-life exercise in design and manufacture and the business elements of automotive engineering.

"Our team worked on a budget that was one-third of the others and has the distinction of delivering the maximum horsepower per dollar. The chief judge of the competition, Jon Hilton, who is also the technical director of the engine division of Renault F1, lauded our efforts for coming up with such a product on such a small budget," says Abhinav Gaur, one of the team members.

"Defianz", equipped with a six-gear engine and a speed of 180 km per hour, was shipped back to India recently after nearly six months as it was stuck at several docks.

Comprising students of mechanical engineering, the DCE team travelled to Britain last July to participate in the four-day contest with 68 other groups. Each car is fully scrutinised, checked on various parameters like noise level, leakage, stability and braking and acceleration systems by the who's who in the field of automobile industry.

For the DCE team the real challenge was fixing their engine that gave way just before they were to fly it for the competition.

"We were jittery but we decided to take a chance. We replaced the engine with a new one that we purchased in England itself. So while other teams were busy giving the final touches to their cars on the first day of the contest, we almost made the car all over again. We fixed the engine in one day. It was amazing," says Nitesh Bidasaria, a fourth year student of DCE, who took part in the contest in 2005 also.

"Since the subject matter of the contest remains the same, one has to think of new modifications for the project each year. In 2005 we used a 500cc engine for the car, while this past year we used the 600cc R6 engine and successfully converted it into an MPFi engine from the original carburetted version," he adds.

"The appreciation and recognition we got from the international community was very gratifying. The contest gave us an opportunity to think and to be creative. It was an engineering challenge for us. It blended academic work and learning with the development of practical engineering skills. It taught us how to work as a team and meet deadlines," he says.

- Parul Sharma

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