The think tank of the Mechanical Association, BITS Pilani, has been gearing up its workshop tools in preparation for the month ahead. What this means is that there remains a lot of work left before APOGEE hits.
The co-ordinator for this year is Ayush Arpit Garg and under his guidance, work for APOGEE is whirring at full speed. This year, the association is holding 4 events of which one is in co-ordination with the EEE and E&I Group. The 3 remaining events are Battle at Waterloo, Junkyard Wars and FTGP.
Each event garners its own unique crowd but going by what the past few years have shown us, Junkyard Wars remains the most popular event with participation of about 60-70 teams. As the name suggests,it is primarily meant as a junkyard event where participants are required to salvage materials from the BITS Workshop to make what is essentially a 3-wheel vehicle, with a particular problem statement in mind. The catch is that no help is provided and teams are given 48 hours in the workshop to figure it out.
You might expect this..
Battle at Waterloo is the second highest grossing event in the Mechanical Association calender and it is essentially a race to the finish where the team which manages to reach the “farthest”, and not the “fastest”, wins.
Scaling the 25 teams of the event above with the 15 teams that participate in FTGP (Full-
Throttle Grand Prix) would be an unfair characterization of an event which in all probability is the hardest and most rewarding. Currently being held in IIT-Bombay as well, it requires the participants to build a remote control internal combustion engine. If you can then imagine sitting in that vehicle and driving it in the basketball court late at night, then you know how fun the event really is.
The last event is Robots at War, which is less of a concern now since there are 3
You might just get to see this..
associations working on it.
As for projects, nearly 35 have been selected with ideas bordering from the ingenious to the outright bizarre. A 2nd year team plans on utilizing cactus juice to make a dry cell while another 3rd year team has designed a robotic exoskeleton for the upper arm extremity that will help in upper body movement.
These projects fall under the Health and Nutrition category and the Energy and Environment category respectively. Another idea of a sprocket sidestand retrieval system using a mechanical automated device stands as one of the simple and possibly effective ideas of getting a sidestand back up while cycling.
With several other projects lined up to address the issue of roadways by taking the Indian mindset into perspective, building micro-heaters for industrial applications and many more, this Apogee is building up into an intellectual spectacle of sorts. Be there to see it for yourself.
