In a world driven by enterprise and innovation, Indians are making waves everywhere. It’s no longer just about Indians heading multinational companies or running multi-million global businesses; it’s also about great futuristic ideas coming from this part of the world. For all we know, the next Newton or Larry Page may turn out to be an Indian.
The three aerospace-engineering students from Chennai’s SRM University may not yet be the Wright brothers of this century, but their design of a future aircraft has qualified them to the finals of a global competition organised by aircraft manufacturer Airbus and the UNESCO.
The trio – Balakrishnan Solaraju Murali, Michael Thomas and Anita Mohil – has modified the shape of the jet exhaust by using intelligent materials, which are shape-memory alloys, thus, reducing propulsion noise. The alloys are powered by harvested electricity which is, in turn, generated by advanced thermoelectric materials using engine heat source. This idea is called ‘Engine air cooling system for noise reduction.’ The team, among the chosen five, competed with 6,000 students, 618 teams from 82 countries to reach the finals of the Fly Your Ideas contest. The prize is an impressive 30,000 euros. The other teams include Malaysia, Australia, Brazil and Italy.
With the spectre of environmental pollution looming large, it is becoming imperative to explore solutions which will reduce our carbon footprints. The aviation industry has a big role to play here and such competitions are the best way to get young minds to work out a cleaner mode of flying in the future. This competition challenged aerospace engineers to cover one of the six themes: energy, efficiency, affordable growth, traffic growth, passenger experience or community friendliness.
Charles Champion, Airbus’ executive vice-president, engineering and Fly Your Ideas patron, is all praise for the quality of work and innovation that he saw in the contest. “These talented students from around the world represent the future of our industry and I am looking forward to welcoming them to Toulouse for the final round.” The five selected teams will present their ideas to a jury of the Airbus and industry experts at Airbus’ headquarters in Toulouse, France on June 12 and the winners will be announced two days later.
Innovations like these deserve headlines. Only recently, an Indian-origin student Eesha Khare designed a 30-second mobile charger. The California-based 18-year-old’s stunning invention made her the talking point at the Intel’s International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, where she beat out over 1,600 other finalists from around the world, earning a cool USD 50,000.
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