Battle of gadget wizards

QuEST Global’, a diversified global engineering services company, announced the winners of the second edition of its annual national intercollegiate engineering design contest ‘QuEST Ingenium 2012’, which was held in the City.

The winning team, PSC College of Technology from Coimbatore, bagged a cash prize of Rs one lakh and a rolling trophy for presenting a project on the design and development of a ‘Multilink Spatial Hyper Redundant Robot’.

“It was an extraordinary experience for us as a team and the four of us are very excited. It feels great that there are companies which give us a platform and recognise our talent. It’s truly encouraging,” says Praveen Jagadeesan, a member of the winning team.

The runners-up, Gogte Institute of Technology from Belgaum and Sri Siddaganga Institute of Technology from Tumkur, walked away with cash prizes of Rs 50,000 and Rs 25,000 respectively.

Dilip Chhabria, an automobile designer, was the chief guest on the occasion and presented the trophies and prizes to the winners.  “Today’s inventions and innovations will impact the way in which our future evolves.

We had never seen such platforms, where we as students could hone our skills or even seek out opportunities to showcase our talent,” says Chhabria, adding, “what is more laudable and inspiring is the fact that these young engineers show immense promise, which I feel will be a critical cog in the wheel of tomorrow’s innovation.”

This contest has attracted 208 entries this year, a 69 per cent increase as compared to the 123 entries the previous year. 

The entries were mainly filed by final year BE and BTech engineering students from core engineering domains, spanning aerospace and defence, aeroengines, mechanical, mechatronics, power generation and production engineering from across India.

Ajay Prabhu, the chief operating officer of ‘QuEST Global’, was very delighted and impressed with the quality of the projects presented this year.

The contest also showcased projects such as a flapping wing aerial vehicle, energy-efficient groundwater drill, design and fabrication of radio-controlled surveillance vehicles, a vertical takeoff and landing micro-aerial vehicle with ducted design, a tele-operated firefighting cum surveillance bot and a photo-lighting system.