JunkBots organized by SAE-IM

The dustbin. It’s the end of the line for all the useless crap we find in our rooms, from cans of soda to overused pens. To the untrained eye, a dustbin is just that – a basket of unwanted junk waiting to be thrown out. As engineers, we sometimes find ourselves in situations where we have to make do with scrap. And this is precisely what JunkBots was about. Organized by the Manipal chapter of Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE-IM), JunkBots saw 8 teams of mostly first year students participating. The teams were provided with galvanized iron sheets, meshes, nuts, bolts, washers, pipes, and everything else that might be tagged as junk in the Mechanical Workshop.

Starting from 27th January, the first three days of the event constituted the prototyping phase in which the teams used the resources provided to make a model of their choice. “The only guidelines are that the model must fit on a 15 cm x 15 cm sheet, be aerodynamically consistent and must follow a scale throughout its structure. Furthermore additional points are awarded for innovation and creativity,” said Harkirat Singh, the event head.

Ferrari Enzo

Some of the models on show on the fourth day of the event were an Enzo Ferrari, a navy ship, the Batmobile, the Bat (also from The Dark Knight trilogy) and an Audi R8. One of the participants, Shardul, mentioned it was particularly difficult to dimension individual elements before cutting them out. Nevertheless he, along with his teammates Rishika and Ashwin, flaunted off a visually appealing model of The Bat aircraft.

“We learned how to cut and solder sheet metal last semester so it’s still fresh in our mind. Besides that, what we learned in engineering graphics helped a lot in making our model to-scale,” remarked Kunwar. He, along with Sanidhya, and Aaron, made an accurate model of a ramp buggy.

The showcasing was graced by the director Dr. GK Prabhu, the Associate Director (Student Welfare) Dr. Nayaran Shenoy, along with several other faculty members.

“The event focuses on team work, and teaches students to work with limited resources and time,” a visibly happy Dr. GK Prabhu said, highly commending the efforts of all the participants. In the end, the general secretary of SAE-IM, Shubham Samanta, lauded his team for making this event a success.

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