This is an English Press Club initiative to keep a record of the progress in the work undertaken by the
Students’ Union. The Club recognises that it is important for the Union to be held accountable to the
students, and will thus endeavour to use this opportunity for the same, in addition to increasing awareness Setting the matter of the ongoing strike aside, Mundhada mentioned the recent
of the various measures implemented. The articles are composed based on the inputs provided by V V Sai development regarding Tele Medicine Services. A meeting took place between the Vice
Praneeth, President, and Ashutosh Ajay Mundhada, General Secretary, Students’ Union.
President of Apollo Tele Medicine Services, Mr. Prem Anand; Mr. Krishnamoorthy, the
Chennai regional head and the Institute, which was represented by the Chief Warden, Dr.
Sai Jagan Mohan, Director G. Raghurama and a few other faculty members. The minutes
of the half hour long meeting included the scope of Telemedicine and how it is going to
With the dhobis still on strike and Laundromat unable to cater to the neds of more
be implemented in Pilani. The Director was impressed with the services offered and has
students, laundering skills of BITSians have for sure been put to test. The English Press
invited officials from Apollo to visit Pilani and take a closer look at how things can be
Club spoke to the Gen Sec Ashutosh Ajay Mundhada to get more updates on the ongoing
implemented. The idea is to have primary consultation facilities and allow people to
SU initiatives. Initially, the plan was to prepare a quotation for 17 to 20 vending machines,
consult specialists in case of any specific problems. There was also a mention about Tele
one to be installed in every bhawan and other places like the Library, SAC etc. The Institute
Emergency Service where immediate services would be provided in case of any
agreed to install one machine for every bhawan, which was later brought down to six
emergencies. But, implementation of this will require cooperation from Sarvi, especially in
vending machines overall. Now, the buck stops with SWD, who, apparently, are refusing
tackling emergency cases. The SU and the Institute are trying their best to establish this
to sign the contract or, rather, are delaying it for no particular reason. When will the
ambitious project, but when people will get the benefits of it is, again, a matter of time.
institute approve the contract? Only time will decide.
...continued from page 1 (Alumni Research Talks 4.0)
...continued from page 1 (Aarohan: The Second Stint)
Aarohan has seen a few changes. Last year, it was a completely
online event. However, following a spate of complaints
regarding the lack of computer labs and connectivity in certain
schools, Brainiac has been made an offline event. This also
counters the issue of some faults observed with the portal,
which is online. Furthermore, this year will see All India Ranks
being handed out to all students, which adds a competitive edge
to the event. The shift to a computerized database should,
hopefully, allow for the mailing of certificates by the first week
of February.
On being questioned about a lack of increase in the number of
participants invited to BITS, Kunal Gupta, the Coordinator of
DExA, claims that the number is restricted to limit the
opportunity to the crème de la crème and due to logistical issues. It
also does, of course, add an aura of exclusivity to the whole
event.
Here’s hoping that the DExA achieves, or transcends, all of its
targets, and that Aarohan 2015 can better the metrics set by its
predecessor.
The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) organises an
annual event in the USA, Africa, South America and Asia,
where engineers in the making get a chance to apply
theoretical knowledge in a real-life activity. For us lot,
college assignments were a lot simpler (Ctrl+C > Ctrl+V,
job done), but here, these undergraduate students put
together all of their technical know-how to create an allterrain vehicle that can endure the merciless off-road
conditions, and yet, not cost a bomb to create (source:
TopGear.com). BITS-Pilani joined the legacy in 2007, and
Inspired Karters went for their first competition that year.
They have come a long way since then.
We got in touch with Akshat Khandelwal, the Vice Captain
of the current team (captained by Anirudh Sridhar), who
graciously answered all our prods. This time, they had one
of their best performances in Jamshedpur. Usually, they go
to Baja-SAE India, in Indore, which last time, saw a
participation from over 100 colleges. There, they secured
the 27th rank amongst almost 125 cars. However, they felt
that not enough attention was being paid to the design
details of each car. Hence, they shifted their focus to
another event, this time in Jamshedpur, called Baja Student
India. While the events and rules were similar, they found
that a significant part of the competition time was spent on
inspecting small details regarding the designs of the cars.
Further, the quality of cars present was much higher.
The lectures were not the typical run-of-the-mill discourses, and were peppered with plenty of stimulating analogies
and demonstrations; presentations were impeccably structured and coursed. The informal discussions gave ample
opportunities for light-hearted tete-a-tetes and quandaries pertaining to the ever omnipresent issue of career choices.
Post-degree dilemmas were adequately answered, as could be seen from a meticulous observer’s studious notes.
Student turnout seemed unprecedented and ART 4.0 proved to be a harbinger for greater inspiration, brilliant minds
and amazing speaking.
design and business proposals. For the first two days, an
iterative process was followed which required multiple
inspections of and corrections to the design. At each stage,
it was checked if the design conformed to every point in
the rule booklet. At the end of the static events, BITS
stood at a formidable fourth position.
Then came the dynamic events which included
acceleration, hill climbing, maneuverability, weight pulling
and endurance testing. They stood third in the weight
pulling, where their task was to pull a 1.6 ton Maruti Gypsy.
Maneuverability, in which the car had to negotiate 0.5 m
bumps, steep banking, boulders etc., saw them coming in at
the 10th position. Finishing 12th and 13th in acceleration
and hill-climb respectively, left them in the fifth position
before the last event, namely endurance. One could see
Akshat’s brooding face bow down as he recounted their
dismal performance in the endurance event, which left
them in the eighth position overall, out of 42 teams that
qualified. But, he promises that performances will improve
progressively.
He tells us that they are grateful for the support that they
have received from the institute. The boiler room has been
made available to them for their work, all year round.
Moreover they often get permission to work in the
workshop after 5 o'clock, which helps with their work.
He agrees, however, that financial support is largely selfgenerated, and while, till last year they had a sponsorship
team, this year on, they have each roped in individual
contacts and were sponsored by organisations and
companies including SKF, BITSAA, Hyundai and SOLO
group. Despite this, they have been largely self-funded and
have each had to pay a significant amount of money to
realize their dreams.
For next year’s competition, they plan to bring drastic
upgrades to their design - they hope to decrease the weight,
replace manual transmission with a Continuously Variable
Transmission (CVT) and modify the suspension setup. The
team is optimistic that the changes will improve their
performance. However, they are worried about the money
required to introduce these, which will become tough to
Like any other student team in Pilani, Baja too faces self-fund.
enormous challenges and success hasn’t come easy. It is
With the advent of newer student teams, it requires them to
often difficult to conform to all the rules, and an attempt at
learn quickly and make clever use of what the Institute can
achieving this hugely increases manufacturing time. The
provide. He further adds that the team should maintain
process is long and strained, where each rod needs to be
close ties with professors and supervisors, updating them
profiled and welded separately because the margin of error
regarding the progress made, which builds trust, as they can
The competition spanned seven days, with a range of is very small. The work often requires long hours and allprovide handy guidance and administrative assistance. We
events broadly classified into static and dynamic events.
nighters seem to be a routine thing. Since we stay in such a
wish Inspired Karters all the luck for future ventures and
secluded place, they often need to travel to Delhi, even for
The static events included inspection of cost of building,
hope that they continue to bring in laurels.
small things like bolts.