Electric rickshaw by Jamia students

Once again it has been proved that young minds are best when it comes to latest technology. Under the guidance of Prof M M Hasan, HoD Abid Haleem and Prateek Bansal, a mechanical engineering student, the team ‘THOR’ comprising eight students from the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University, participated in SAE Efficycle 2012, a three-day national event held at University Institute of Technology, Chandigarh.

The team designed, developed and fabricated a hybrid electric rickshaw under the banner of Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), JMI. The team bagged the first prize and also achieved Durability Award and cash prize of Rs. 1.3 lakh at the competition.

Following its extraordinary achievement, the department of Mechanical Engineering of JMI also felicitated the students. Sharing his excitement with Metrolife, Prateek Bansal, a third-year student and one of the members of the team, says, “We wanted to make something that is environment-friendly.”

The competition consisted of a virtual event and a final field event. The virtual event was held at four different campuses across India where representatives of every team displayed the virtual and stimulated model of their creations. The field event spanned across three days exposing young engineering minds to the nitty-gritty of vehicular design and fabrication. The event culminated with a final durability race in which all eligible teams took part in a 90-minute race across the campus covering a stretch of over 1.4 kms.

The other members were Ankur Wadhwa, design head; Alan Babu, a design team member; Akhil Gupta, who was responsible for brake selection and validation; Ankit Garg, who chose steering and tires; Sagar Gupta made motor and dynamo selection and circuit; Shubham Garg did the marketing; and Mohammad Areeb collected the data and worked on plotting.

“On the theme of ‘Go Green’, we made this rickshaw which can be used commercially. It can ferry six people in each trip. We imported the motor for the rickshaw from China and used four batteries of 48 volts. It has the potential to replace the existing rickshaws,” adds Prateek.