It takes a lot more than ‘on-duty’ slips to motivate engineering students to attend technical symposiums. But the organisers of Pinnacle, the symposium of the Mechanical Department at College of Engineering in the city, seem to have no problems attracting sizeable student participation every year — the event that brings in the crowd is the Auto Show, which features a number of luxury cars and bikes.
Organised by the SME (Society of Mechanical Engineers) of College of Engineering, Guindy, the fifth edition of the Auto Show, which has developed into a marquee event, saw the participation of hundreds of students.
Around 15 luxury cars, including a Roll Royce Ghost and Lamborghini Aventador were on display. Amongst the superbikes that made it to the event, one could spot a Honda Fireblade and a Ducati Monster.
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“As Mechanical engineering students, we are naturally passionate about automobiles. The idea was to put on display a set of cars that people don’t get to see on a day-to-day basis,” says Prashanth Krishnan, secretary, Corporate and Industrial Relations, Society of Mechanical Engineers.
With 16 events unfolding over three days, the campus wore a carnival-like atmosphere, particularly on the day of the Auto Show when luxury automobiles were driven into the arena.
The audience was predominantly male and couldn’t stop themselves from clicking pictures of the vehicles on their mobile phones.
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How did they manage to put such an array of cars and bikes together? “We contacted exotic cars and bikes club in the city and invited them to take part in the show,” says Prashanth.
Chennai Superbikes, an exclusive club of superbike owners, is responsible for bringing the exotic superbikes to the event this year. Says Taha Hussain, a member of the club and a student doing his diploma in Automobile Engineering at Hindustan Polytechnic, “All the bikes participating at the auto show are 600 cc or more.”
But, that wasn’t all. Pinnacle had several fun events, including a gaming competition and a Rubix cube solving event.