SRM students design All Terrain Vehicle

CHENNAI: Nowadays, students seem to have become more competitive than corporates, throwing up stiff challenges towards the manufacturing sector even while they are on campus. The students of Automobile Engineering, SRM University, have done something that have raised several eyebrows in the automobile manufacturing sector. They have built a high performance All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) right from the scratch.A team of students from the University’s official BAJA team won the national level overall championship earlier this month for the creation of ‘The Concords’ — an off-road racing car. They competed with over 244 colleges all over the country and emerged victorious.The team of 24 students drawn from various branches such as Mechanical Engineering, Automobile Engineering, Electronics and Communication Engineering and Mechatronics completed the project after nine months of hard work. The completion not only involved fabrication of the ATV from scratch, but also taking it to Pitampur in Madhya Pradesh to test it for a range of parameters such as acceleration, maneuverability, hill climb and endurance race.The Car, officially christened ‘Dirt Reaper 2.0’, powered by a 304cc Briggs and Stratton engine, was completely fabricated by the students at the University lab. They began designing the vehicle using modeling softwares, then analysing the design and finally fabricating and testing the finished product. The team was led by K Subhash Babu, a final year Automobile Engineering student, and consisted of 13 final year students, seven third year students and four second year students.R Veluswamy, Senior Engine Manager, Mahindra & Mahindra Limited, said, “A normal Scorpio car is designed in such a way it could climb heights at an angle of 14 degrees. But the best part of this model of ‘Dirt Reaper 2.0’ is that it can climb heights at an angle of 39 degrees, which is outstanding.”