If everything goes as per the plan, a group of enthusiastic engineers in the making, of a city college, will be among a few to wave the Indian flag across the globe at student formula events.
Force Ikshvaku is a team of 25 mechanical engineering students of National Institute of Engineering (NIE), which was formed with an objective to build NIE’s own formula-style car that could compete in the FS Germany, FS Italy, FS India, SUPRA SAE India, and others events.
With its successful stint the previous year, the engineers have planned to work in reducing the weight of the car, thereby increasing the endurance level of the car on the race track.
Speaking to DH, Shreevatsa P S (captain) of Force Ikshvaku said, they have planned to use aerospace grade aluminium parts in pursuit of weight reduction, a wide range of sensors for monitoring vehicle dynamics and carbon fibre for some parts for its new version of the car, at an estimated cost of Rs 6 lakh. The racing car is conceived and designed by the team and fabricated at the workshop on the campus of their college, which has given support in their endeavour.
Vageesha, the team manager, explained, the event consists of technical inspection, where their cars are inspected by judges from Russia and Germany. After approval, they are allowed to participate in the next rounds and have to pass egress test, noise test, tilt test and brake test, to qualify for the final endurance event. Then, the car has to clear acceleration test, skidpad test and autocross event for extra points. Each test is awarded points as the team clears it. The final endurance run, in which the car has to endure a minimum of 22 km, to test the car’s durability on the race track. The team with most points is considered as champion.
The team is concentrating on reducing the weight of the car from 320 kg to 200 kg, low emission and more endurance. The team would need a budget of around Rs 6 lakh for the next season. The project is being crowd-funded in milaap.org. and expects companies and individuals to donate for the project.
A majority of the car’s components were fabricated in-house at the NIE-CNC Training Centre. The entire car was assembled at the NECAT (NIE-Eicher Centre for Automotive Technology) facility.
TEQIP-II, a World Bank and MHRD joint initiative, provided financial support to the students in their endeavour, besides many private companies of Mysuru sponsoring the event.
The team made its presence in the SUPRA SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) India in the year 2015, standing 10th and won second place in the cost segment. It is an event that provides a platform for the students to test their engineering skills and refine them.
The team had participated in the SAEINDIA SUPRA 2016 held at Buddh International Circuit, Greater Noida. Out of 130 teams from all over the country, the team was among the top 24, which had qualified for the endurance run and secured the seventh position in the final standings, fourth in the final endurance, compared to the 54th position in SUPRA 2015. It also bagged two awards: second place in Cost Effectiveness Segment and the Spirit of SUPRA award.
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