The 2015 Texas Instruments Innovation Challenge (TIIC) India Design Contest train is getting close to its destination. This exciting journey has reached the semifinals stop, a showcase of the exemplary and innovative talents of the Indian engineering students, all aspiring to make it onto the last stretch.
This year’s India Design Contest received an overwhelming response with more than 11,200 students across 654 education institutes submitting 3,100 proposals. After the challenging task of short listing the proposals, 1,209 teams were selected and provided with TI components. The teams then implemented the proposed solutions, subjected the solutions to testing in the lab and field, and submitted their report and video presentation. Based on the review of these projects, 86 teams were selected to enter the contest’s semi-final stage. The semi-final was conducted at four venues and each of the 86 teams was invited to one of the four venues based on proximity. The invited teams demonstrated their projects at the venue to the reviewers, invited guests and other visitor.
For students, participating in the contest and competing with the best of budding engineering talent in the country proved to be a fantastic learning opportunity. The hours invested in researching and designing the solution, identifying the appropriate TI components, building and revising prototypes, and demonstrating and receiving feedback on the products proved to be a significant learning experience.
The projects reflected the students’ desire to provide solutions to everyday social challenges. The contest provided young innovators with an opportunity to contribute to social empowerment, with their main reward knowing that their solutions have the power to positively impact the world.
The Mumbai Semi-Final
27 teams from engineering colleges located in Western India participated in the semi-finals hosted by Terna Engineering College, Navi Mumbai, on April 11, 2015.
The geneses of the projects, which covered a wide range of domains, lay in the everyday ills and challenges that affect the society.
The challenges the farmers face across Maharashtra motivated the Terna Engineering College team to design the Advanced Automated Irrigation System to monitor water and fertilizer levels in the fields and helping in timely irrigation and fertilization. The students of Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI), Mumbai— focused on making an eye movement controlled wheelchair for quadriplegics. The team was inspired to work on this project by their interaction with an NGO.
Click here for the projects demonstrated at the Mumbai semi-final.
The Delhi Semi-Final
On April 12, 2015, 11 teams from Jaipur, Guwahati, Calcutta and Delhi participated in the semi-final held at Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (NSIT), New Delhi.
Just as with the teams from Mumbai, the students showed that inquiring minds can think of out of the box solutions for common social issues.
The team from the Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida demonstrated their environment-friendly solution, a refrigerator powered through solar energy. They expanded on the premise that using a renewable energy sources to power omnipresent home appliances can lead to reduction in demand for conventional energy sources. The team from Bharati Vidyapeeth's College of Engineering worked on a highly accurate surveillance spheroid, with an autostabilized camera and face detection capability to help identify people stuck under debris in times of calamities.
Click here for the projects demonstrated at the Delhi semi-final.
The TIIC IDC 2015 train then moved on to the other 2 semi-final venues. In the next part we will cover the projects and comments from the events at Bangalore and Chennai leading to the selection of the finalists.
