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Education Plus
Young inventors
On a roll: Putting ideas to work.
“Look Ma! No feet!” In the near future, that will be something you can say while driving your car! Collins Angelo, Arpan B., Ananthakrishnan and A. Anand, four final year Mechanical Engineering students at Anna University have paved the way for its realisation with their project – a three wheeled car that is entirely operated from a handlebar using no pedals or steering wheel. “Vehicles available in the market for those differently abled today,” explains Collins “are not only expensive, but also quite unsafe. We therefore wanted to provide them with an option that was both safe and affordable.”
A two-seater auto geared car, the ‘Crossover’, is an ideal solution for those physically challenged below the torso. It is not only weatherproof and fuel efficient, but also much more stable in comparison to the modified bikes that are the only available alternatives in the market right now. “Although it’s three wheeled like the auto,” Ananthakrishnan explains, “it’s more stable, because it’s two front wheels steer while the rear wheel gives power.” “It’s basically a cross between a car and a bike” Arpan states, “that retains the best features of both.”
Dr. Latha Nagendran, Asst. Professor of Design at Anna University who supervised this project, says that such hardware design and fabrication projects were popular until the 90s. They were rapidly replaced however, with quick-on paper projects. Though now, she adds, they’re making a comeback.
And assuredly so, as yet another group of final year Mech. students display their handiwork nicknamed the ‘Sting Ray’, an amphibious tricycle, brainchild of Sujay Kumar, Lakshmi Narayana, Somasundaram and Vinod Kumar.
A single-seater tricycle that uses its rear wheel to steer when in water and has twenty one gear shifts for a variety of speeds, it could be the quick fix solution to floods in Chennai they joke. The comfortable height and structure of the seat makes pedaling easy and stress-free. Although the utility of this product is presently limited to recreational purposes, it provides great scope as an idea that may be built upon to accommodate situational and contextual circumstances.
Mr. R. V. Perumal, former director of the ISRO, currently the Vikram Sarabhai Chair at Anna University remarked that it was a little sad that the students did not have access to better infrastructure which would have resulted in improved versions of the same products.
Ask these young inventors and they’ll tell you that these projects were not just learning opportunities and enriching experiences, but also great fun. Both products can do with aesthetic and economic improvement they agree, for they were designed and built in the span of three months, along with a number of limitations due to the lack of ready finances.
Having paid for everything from their own pockets, they remark how they had to make several compromises in order to cut costs. “Just our luck,” recalls one, “we had to buy steel, and the day we went turned out to be the day after the budget, thanks to which steel prices had shot up!”
SHILPA VIJAYAKRISHNAN
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