How many times have you forgotten to disengage the handbrake in your car before resuming your journey? An automatic handbrake-release system may be just what auto mechanics repairing the cars of such forgetful drivers would recommend.
Students of the National Institute of Engineering (NIE) in Mysore have been engaging themselves in such innovative projects of relevance to society’s needs. Now, the NIE is among the nine colleges in the State to have been sanctioned with a New Age Incubation Centre to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation.
At the centre, students, research scholars and alumni of the college will take up projects to solve local problems and find solutions to local needs, said an official of the Department of Information Technology and Biotechnology.
Each college, which has been selected on the basis of the World Bank’s Tequip-II report, will receive a funding of up to Rs. 40 lakh over a period of three years.
All the centres will be networked to exchange experiences and learn from one another, the official said.
Principal of NIE, Mysore, G.L. Shekhar told The Hindu that the students are working on a host of projects such as automobile gadgets, instruments to help the visually-impaired navigate their way, blending of various construction material to reduce the cost of construction and so on.
Professor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering M.V. Achutha, who also heads the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Centre (IEDC), said the college had applied for patent for nine projects taken up by the students.
The projects include design and fabrication of a kit to supply LPG and biogas blend for domestic and industrial applications, development of masonry blocks manufactured by recycled brick powder and stabilised with cement crumb rubber as an additive, besides design and fabrication of hybrid bicycle with variable momentum.
