Giggles to Gears : OUTPERFORMing the challenge …

Three cheers! One for women empowerment, two for young budding automobile designers and the last for world-class opportunity to simulate real-world designs.

The movie ‘3 Idiots’ conveyed the message that education needs to travel beyond the four walls of the classroom and translate into practicality.

Taking a cue, Society of Automotive Engineers of India has organised the JK Tyre Baja SAE India 2010 at Pithampur, Indore, during January 29-31, 2010 in an bid to translate bookish knowledge into a tool that would help in daily living.

This event provides budding mechanical engineers a platform to showcase their potential as automobile designers by building and racing off-road buggies. The main aim of the event is to help engineering students develop and hone their skills in various fields of the industry such as design, planning, production, safety, marketing and costing through designing and building off-road 4-wheelrs for recreational purposes from scratch.

And its really feels wonderful to see my niece, Apoorvi Singhal, also participating in this racing event where one of the evaluator is my ex-colleague, Mathew San.

Well, I congratulate Maharashtra Institute of Technology, Aurangabad for winning the competition. However, my special congratulations to all-girl team from Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Delhi for bagging special Chairman’s special award along with an award of Rs one lakh.

These 10 engineering students from IGIT, Delhi conceptualised their monster ATV called Shark and made sure it hogged the limelight at the event.


In an interview with a leading news-paper, the team has explained about their progress & achievement. "We made a softcopy of our ATV in the month of May and registered for the event. We named our vehicle 'Shark' so that the tough guys from other institutes realise that it won't be a cakewalk for them and we did proved it in the end," said Komal Sethi, captain and 3rd year mechanical automation student of IGIT.

"There were various laps with around 10 to 15 obstacles in each lap. It was in my seventh lap I realized that the transmission to my gear was jammed, so in the dirt track I had to control my ATV with one hand and my other hand was on the gearbox. Then I managed to drive the car for next seven laps with one hand," said daredevil driver of the team, Parul Chadha.
The team gave a nail-biting competition and refused to let anyone take the lead."I made it a point that I would not give up in front of the guys. As the other participants teased us, I became more confident," added the confident Chadha.

Before going to the event the team also practiced at the dirt track near Gurgaon.In 2009, IGIT team could not get any position but this year they finished 13th among the 80 teams across the country. "We tried to make the car as light as possible and made enough space for the driver. We also used wide 10 inches tyre in the front and 12 inches in the rear side," said Komal.

Apoorvi, the core member of this team, has expressed her ambition to participate in similar racing events in future at the global level. Seeing her motivation, confidence, enthusiasm & automation skills I am sure that these girls not only gossip to giggle but also will get the gear of success.

Best of Luck & Chak De !!