News Details

Team DREAMERS win First place in NSSC ’13 at IIT-Kharagpur

11-Sep-2013


Continuing their winning spree, "DREAMERS," members of the Alpha Flying Club, comprising Johnson Tellis, Achala Shetty, Fadil Luqman, Semester V, Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering, Gautham Nayak, Semester V, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sona Krishnan, Semester V, Department of Computer Science Engineering, Aman Agarwal, Semester III, Department of Computer Science Engineering, and Anwar, Semester III, Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering, have won the First place in the event, `Drill-Droid’ in the NSSC ’13 (National Students' Space Challenge -13), organised by IIT-Kharagpur under the aegis of ISRO, catapulting the college yet again onto the national map. The project was guided and supported by Prof. Abdul Kareem, Associate Professor, Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering.

This is yet another significant win by the team which only recently had won the second place in the IIT event, "Kshitij 2013" for their design "the DREAM Overhaul," and the second place in the event `Lakshman Rekha (line following robot)’, a national level technical fest organised by SNIST, Hyderabad. The flame that was ignited was carried further to an even more challenging event, "The Drill Droid," at the National Students’ Space Challenge ’13.

National Students’™ Space Challenge is the sole technical fest of its genre dedicated to promoting space enthusiasm in India. It was conceived by Space Technology Students’™ Society, a group of IITians from various disciplines working towards a common goal of motivating space interest among the student community of India, which is trying to emerge as one of the major forefronts in the field of space technology.

Participants from various colleges and universities across the country took part in events such as Water Rockety, Minestroid, Drill-Droid, Designeer, Submerge II, Spacebin, and Space Trek. A T-Shirt Design Competition for NSSC ‘13 with prizes worth Rs. 10,000/- for this was also a part of the event. The theme of NSSC ’13 was to `Build, Innovate, Achieve’, providing the participants with an overwhelming opportunity to tackle real life space problems and take a step further as budding space scientists, creating pathways to meet the demands of ever decreasing natural sources, build the next generation rover for a rescue mission or a water-rocket or design an underwater rover. The participating teams were given an opportunity to compete with the best brains in the country.

The Drill-Droid event in which the team won the First place aims to help in the endeavour to make new and fascinating discoveries ever since NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory landed the Curiosity Rover on Mars in 2011, with the efforts of finding evidence of life. This passion has driven NASA to launch a rover in 2020 which can bring back samples of Martial Soil back to Earth. Drill-Droid aims to help in this endeavor and collect samples from under a solid surface. The participants were expected to build a manual bot which would be capable of traversing a difficult terrain, having a drill mechanism attached. The mechanism should be able to drill at specific locations in the arena and also collect samples present underneath. The bot should thus be able to traverse a rocky terrain like Mars, drill through thermocol placed at specific locations and suck the liquid through the holes drilled at the marked locations. With a terrain already laid out with specifics and the judging parameters being stringent, it was only a matter of time before the team, `DREAMERS,’ was able to clinch the First place in the event competing against forty-two teams from different states and setting up a high score of 600+ leaving behind other IITians and NITians with 300 points. Thought to be a perfect bot, it still emerged with some hiccups. The team persevered till the very end and by implementing unique ideas firmed its position to the highest zenith. All who were a part of the event, appreciated the team work and capabilities.

The icing on the cake for all the participants in NSSC ’13, were guest lectures by Mr. Chander Bhushan Devgun, Founding President of Space India, who is a passionate avid astronomer armed with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and has twenty-five years of experience in observational astronomy, telescope making, and astrophotography and the first Indian ever, to have an astrophotography picture on APOD. The other guest lecture was by Dr. S. Sudhakar, Director of The North Eastern Satellite Application Center, with tremendous experience in Space and Satellite Applications. He extensively contributed in bringing SISDP (Space based Information System for Decentralised Planning) project into a National Project. Participants had an opportunity to take part in Small Satellite and Ballooning, Amateur Radio and Delta Wing workshops.

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