The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : TechTop showcases students’ ingenuity

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TechTop showcases students’ ingenuity

Special Correspondent

PROUD WINNERS: Vice-Chancellor, University of Kerala, A. Jayakrishnan, hands over a cheque for Rs.1 lakh to the student team from the Amritha Viswa Vidya Peetham, Kollam, which won the first prize in the TechTop contest for the best project by engineering students.

Thiruvananthapuram: The fourth edition of TechTop, an annual event organised by Technopark which concluded here on Tuesday, showcased the ingenuity and enterprise of engineering students across the country.

‘Chakshuyaan,’ a project sponsored by the Amritha Viswa Vidya Peetham, Kollam, bagged the first prize at the two- day event. The second prize went to the University Institute of Technology, West Bengal, for its project on ‘automation and enhancement of tea manufacturing by controlled environment fermentation.’

Students from the R.C. Patel Institute of Technology, Maharashtra, won the third prize for their project on a surveillance robot for detection of bombs.

A. Jayakrishnan, Vice-Chancellor, University of Kerala, presented the awards at the valedictory function. Technopark CEO Mervin Alexander and Chief Financial Officer Chandrasekharan Nair were also present.

The first prize winning project, ‘Chakshuyaan,’ was aimed at developing a state-of-the-art unmanned, radio controlled aircraft using Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) technology, GPS navigation facilities and an onboard high resolution camera with reconnaissance features for better safety.

The project team comprised four students from the Mechanical, Electrical and Electronics departments — Shreyas Narsipur, Shibesh Dutta, Raghu Menon and Vandana Vikram. The project seeks to equip the aircraft with microcontrollers that would facilitate its safe return to command site even if it has veered off its range. According to the students, such an accomplishment would find applications in search-and-rescue operations with further research. The team has selected the design of the aircraft and completed a detailed study of the control aspects. The students have developed a rudimentary speed controller for the DC motors on the aircraft. The engine has also completed its test run.

The controlled environment fermentation process for automation and enhancement of tea manufacturing developed by the second prize winners from the University Institute of Technology, Maharashtra, seeks to improve the quality of tea. The student team, including Raka Chowdhury, Sankha Subhra Mukherjee, Aveek Dasmalakar, Debangan Roy and Koushik Chakraborty, developed a system using digital image processing technology to optimise environmental parameters and detect the end point of the fermentation process.

The students from the R.C. Patel institute of Technology, Maharashtra, won the third prize for their project on remote-controlled surveillance for detection of bombs. The team comprising Pardeshi Bhimashankar, Pardeshi Nilesh, Marwadi Mangesh, Orha Ashish and Patil Tushar presented the use of Radio Frequency (RF) mode for operation of a surveillance robot. The proposed system provides remote controlled operation up to a range of 150 metres. The surveillance robot can move in all four directions and features a foldable arm with three joints.

The winners were selected from 27 teams.

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