Inventive foursome

Team Chronos — a quartet comprising Sumit Patil, Pulkit Agarwal, and Sohan Jawale, all fourth year mechanical engineering students at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) and Tanuj Jhunjhunwala (third year) — has designed the prototype of an electric wheelchair which bagged the first prize for the most sustainable design in the Autodesk Sustainability Workshop Design, and third prize in the Autodesk Inventor Student Design Competition 2011 held at IIT-M on November 16 last year. The competition — organised by IIT-M in association with Autodesk India (a world leader in 3-D design engineering) together with Bosch India and SAE India — challenged students to design a digital, cost-effective, and assistive rehabilitation device for people with any form of disability, using Autodesk software.

The innovative battery-powered electric wheelchair incorporates a semi-trapezoidal shaped track belt mechanism which allows the user to lean forward while climbing stairs, unlike in traditional wheelchairs where the user has her back to the stairs. Other original features include a push-back facility to incline the wheelchair at different angles, a cup holder, tilt sensors, two linear actuators to maintain the seat in horizontal position while climbing stairs, a joystick to control navigation, headlights, rear view mirror, and a manually controlled handbrake and backup battery for emergencies.

Team Chronos has been working at the Centre for Innovation (CFI), a student lab at IIT-M, for over a year to develop a prototype of a stair-climbing robot. At a national robotics competition held in October 2010 at the Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment in Chennai, organised by the Defence Research and Development Organisation, the Chronos team was one of five teams to be awarded top honours. “Since we had already done a major part of the work on our robotic project, it took us only two months to finalise the design for the electric wheel-chair. However, it underwent several changes as modifications were made at different stages to overcome limit-ations,” says Jhunjhunwala.

Looking ahead, even as members of the quartet are working hard to realise their academic goals, they are simultaneously monitoring the progress of the electric wheelchair. “We plan to present our design in the upcoming Dell Social Innovation Challenge annual international competition. This event will provide us the training and support to perfect and market our innovation, and we plan to make it our final year curriculum project. We are hopeful the wheelchair will be in the market within two years,” says Jawale.

God speed!

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Suchitra Ramesh

A foot fracture opened up golf as a potential career option for Suchitra Ramesh (13), a class VII student of Bangalore’s Greenwood High School. “In 2006, I fractured my right heel and the doctor prescribed playing golf to hasten the healing process. Once I started playing, I liked the sport so much that I couldn’t stop even after my foot had healed. And it so happened that a coach spotted me and told me I had great potential. That’s how it all started,” recalls Suchitra, after winning the Clover Greens Charity Tournament on February 4 in Bangalore, in the 0-15 handicap category. Four days later, she added the winner’s (girls) trophy of the 4th Callaway Juniors Tour Qualifier to her crowding mantelpiece.

The year 2011 was exceptionally good for this budding star of the golfing greens. She was ranked No.1 by the Indian Golf Union in the girls under-12 category and won the Toyota Etios North, South and Eastern India Juniors last December. She was also runner-up in the Usha Delhi Open and the Western India Juniors.

Suffering her fortuitous foot fracture when she was just eight, Suchitra honed her skills in Seoul, South Korea, where her father R.K. Ramesh, general manager of the Bangalore-based Toyota Kirloskar Motors, was posted between 2007-09. In Seoul, she came under the tutelage of Stephen Moriarty, a world-renowned golf instructor.

“Now that I’m in Bangalore, he is still my coach and advises me via V1 Pro software (video swing analysis system), which makes it possible for him to provide feedback on my play via online videos,” says Suchitra.

Acknowledging her parents enthu-siastic support, Suchitra says  her mother Uma is her most ardent supporter. “She’s my mum, PR person, friend — all rolled into one,” she says, while also attributing her success to a rigorous practise regime of two and a half hours on weekdays and five hours on Saturdays.

Hooked on her unwittingly chosen sport, this promising youngster is set to make it her profession. “I want to be a professional golfer. Golf is coming back to the Olympics in 2016 in Brazil and I want to represent India in the event. I also want to wear India colours in the 2014 Asian Games in Korea. But these ambitions require intelligent training and preparation. In the short term, I have my sights set on winning the Usha Delhi Ladies and Junior Girls Amateur tournaments in Noida on April 16,” she enthuses.

Fore!

Rutaksha Rawat (Bangalore)