Students of NIT-Rourkela in Odisha make it big at national auto event

Reported by Santosh Jagdev
Rourkela, Aug 26:

Students of the National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Odisha’s steel city Rourkela have brought laurels for the Institute in the Team Roadrunner competition at a national level event- ‘SUPRA SAEINDIA Student Formula-2014’ organised at Madras Motor Sports Club in Chennai, Secretary Public Relations of the institute RK Sinha said today.

Team Roadrunner, a team of 25 students from various disciplines of engineering of the NIT, Rourkela have been placed second among 100 teams across the country in engineering design category and bagged a cash prize of Rs 20,000, awarded by ANSYS INDIA, along with a trophy.

“Our students fabricated a formula style racing car employing a Yamaha R6 600 cc engine imported from the USA. The entire assembly and manufacturing of the 360 kg vehicle was done in the workshop of the institute,” said Sinha.

The SUPRA SAEINDIA is a competition which involves designing, modelling and fabricating a formula type racing car by the under graduate and post graduate engineering students. This event is an engineering challenge for students and tests their skills in in the entire process from design and engineering to production, marketing and endurance test.

The automobile designed by the NIT Rourkela students has 4 cylinders, 600cc, 120 BHP Yamaha R6 engine generating a maximum torque of 66 Nm. The vehicle has a top speed of 160 Kmph and can attain an acceleration of 100 Kmph in 6-7 seconds.

The vehicle sports a glass fibre body and is equipped with a real time data acquisition and GPS systems. The fuel tank, exhaust system and the intake manifold are custom-made enabling the manufacturing costs to come down drastically and making it a budget car.

Sinha further said the team NIT has also completed the endurance test and qualified for the race along with 12 other teams and was among the top 6 teams to complete the race. Out of the 12 teams that passed the brake test, the team has done exceptionally well clearing it at a speed of 55 miles/hour in the first trial itself. The minimal noise and smoothness of the vehicle on the tracks received the appreciation of the judges and made it stand out among the other participating vehicles, he added.

The team has also qualified for the first ever FORMULA STUDENT INDIA event to be organized in January 2015 where teams from China and Ukraine along with top teams from India are expected to participate. The Institute has committed to provide all types of backup support to the team to showcase the talent and innovation skills of budding technocrats of the Institute in the event, Sinha said.