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From life-saver to asset-tracker to theft-preventer, SIH 2019 Hardware edition at IIT Kharagpur witnessed prototype sensor development for a wide array of industrial challenges. 93 green horns from seven states participated in this week-long national competition where they were posed challenges by Ministry of Coal and Garden Reach Shipbuilding Yard to develop industry-scale hardware solutions ranging from Smart Communication to Smart Vehicles, from Security and Surveillance to Miscellaneous technological ideas related to tertiary sectors.
This is the first time that public and private sector companies have become part of Smart India Hackathon in its 3 years of existence, including 40 industries and 9 Central Govt. ministries and departments. The purpose is to bridge the gap between industry and academia in order to improve the competitiveness of Indian goods and services in the global market and to encourage entrepreneurship among students in line with Startup India program and thus to boost employment.
Prof. Sriman Kumar Bhattacharyya, officiating Director of IIT Kharagpur, said, “What started as an initiative to playfully involve students to think creatively has emerged as a major initiative which has seen youth from all over India think hard and come up with solutions for many problems facing India today.”
Prof. Shailendra K. Varshney, coordinator of the event at IIT Kharagpur said, “Smart India Hackathon is an innovative platform to ignite young minds to think, to solve problems with the help of technology. It is learning through innovation!”
The Ministry of Coal announced five winners for all of its five problem statements carrying an award of Rs. 1 Lakh each for designing prototypes.
While Team Gravity Plus from Lingaya’s Vidyapeeth, Faridabad, Haryana developed a sensor which could use a combination of the chemical composition of air to locate victims trapped under mining debris or roof fall or gas explosion, Team Wild Crew from Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, Dwarka, Delhi developed a prototype sensor and software which would work as an automatic alert for Safety Officers and Ambulances for accident victims in vehicles.
Team Magnificent Dreams from PSNA College Of Engineering and Technology, Dindigul, Tamil Nadu developed a prototype control panel to display key parameters of heavy earth moving machinery, Team Enigma 99 from CVR College of Engineering, Ibrahimpatan, Telangana developed a smart sensor based fuel tank guard alarm to give protection against theft and siphoning.
Team Robogyan Dr. Akhilesh Das Gupta Institute of Technology & Management, Delhi, developed an IoT device with GPS which can help CSR project monitoring on a real-time basis and create a databank of all the assets to conduct appropriate analysis. The team’s prototype is market ready confirmed team member Jai Garg.
Garden Reach Shipbuilding Yard adjudged Team Tesseract of Sri Ramakrishna Engineering Colleges, Coimbatore, as the only winner for their new hardware design solution towards insulation issue in Auxiliary and Deck machinery motors in naval ships. They were awarded Rs. 50,000/- as prize money. Mr. Ambudhi Shukla, Deputy Manager in Garden Reach Shipbuilding Yard, said, “Students apply their fresh minds and bring into play new concepts. They have worked well and devised cost effective, simple solutions which can be implemented industrially.”
