You know how they say that third time's the charm? Provided all goes well, with regards to the pandemic, this will be the third season that students of Hyderabad Institute of Technology and Management will be part of the race at the Quad Bike Design Challenge (QBDC) organised by Fraternity of Mechanical and Automotive Engineers (FMAE). But this time, they need an extra boost. You see, the college and some sponsors have been helping them tide over, financially, in the past two years. But this time, the A-Team has initiated a crowdfunding campaign for four lakhs on ImpactGuru so that they can test the waters on their own.
Among the various competitions organised by FMAE, the one that interests this team of 20 is building a quad bike of their own. This four-wheeler mean machine, with a 200 cc engine sourced from another bike, is what they hope to build and to build it, they need the funds. This is where you come in. "It's been 60 days since we started this campaign and we have raised about Rs 10,000 till now," says Viswanadha Indukuri, the 20-year-old Treasurer of the team. Dry shafts, steering mechanism, framework, disc and so many other materials need to be procured. "We are planning to source dispatch, calipers, throttle cables and air filters from a service centre in Ramkote and customised hydraulic brake linings, rod ends, eyeball joints from Ranigunj," says Aashish Sharma, the captain of the team, indicating to us that they have laid the groundwork already.
To keep up the spirits of the participants, keeping in mind that the in-person race might have to be called off because of the pandemic, the QBDC conducted their design presentation round online and appreciated the design of this team, who introduced a new motion analysis and motion study in their presentation. And this is all the validation they needed. So they are fairly positive that their quad bike, whose designs they want to keep mum about in lieu of this being a competition, is already on the fast track to success. The terrain for off-road vehicles is in Keesara, near Hyderabad, where they hope to be competing soon.
"When our college reopens, we will manufacture the bike. We have already asked our juniors to apply to the team and have about 130 applications. We will conduct one-on-one interviews to determine who we should bring on board," informs 21-year-old Aashish. That's great, but what's Plan B if their crowdfunding — for which many of their college mates are also donating as much as they can afford to — doesn't come through? They have this quandary sorted as well. "We have a 3D printer at college and we plan to conduct three-day workshops on 3D printing. We can also conduct workshops on automobiles and other topics," says Aashish matter-of-factly. So whether they do this the easy way or go round-about, the team intends to participate in the QBDC, the registration process for which has begun already.
Passionate about automobiles? Here are some other student challenges you can participate in:
- Formula Bharat: Think of Formula 1 but student-style. It's an engineering design competition for life-size formula-style vehicles
- Formula SAE: Organised by SAE International, it's a student design competition for small formula-style race cars
- Formula Student India: Started to encourage motorsport events in India, it focuses on international standards of design
Check out the crowdfunding campaign here impactguru.com/fundraiser/help-revclusters-1
