Chennai students’ green ‘batmobile’ wins laurels

Abishek Murali and Rehan Hanif with their creation. Photo: M. Karunakaran

Batman’s sleek crime-fighting ‘Batmobile’ laden with an array of gadgets and lasers has always been a dream vehicle for children.

In an attempt to make it a reality, two city school students have been working on a model of it for a year now, and their design of what they call, ‘Bat-thrust’ won the first place at Destination Zero Carbon – a car designing and racing competition hosted in Singapore recently.

The competition, conducted by Robotix Learning Solutions, encourages children to build their own green cars that run on hydrogen fuel.

The participants had to race their miniature cars in a wind tunnel at the event.

“We have always dreamt of owning a batmobile. We thought, why not make one,” said Abishek Murali. Abhishek and Rehan Hanif are class XII students of Maharshi Vidya Mandir.

“We wanted to make the most stylish hybrid car that was also fuel-efficient. It is just a model though, as the challenges of scaling it up and getting enough hydrogen will be tough,” the duo said.

The students went through multiple designs before arriving at a final sketch of Bat-thrust and used 3-D printing and laser techniques to get perfect cuts.

A valve to let hydrogen into the fuel set is also embedded within the design.

“The material is basically PLA plastic that is made from corn starch which is eco-friendly. The only other material used is tissue paper and cardboard,” said Rehan.

For the last year, both the students have spent their weekends at Robotics camps figuring out techniques that gave shape to their model.

The rear of the car was inspired from Bugatti Veyrun. “It is one of the fastest cars. That combined with the aerodynamics of the batmobile makes our design really sleek,” Abishek said.

Both Abishek and Rehan plan to study mechanical engineering at one of the Indian Institutes of Technology or abroad, but are clearly into car design.

“Many of the other designs at the event were fascinating too. One of the cars was very light and made completely of aluminium, while another was made entirely of playing cards,” said Rehan.