Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Grand plans for Shaastra

Chennai: It is the golden jubilee year of IIT-Madras and the team organising Shaastra – the institute’s annual technical festival – wants to make sure no one forgets the fact.

“We want to celebrate it in style,” Sayan Ganguly, co-curricular affairs secretary, said here on Monday. The festival will have about 55 events and about 7,000 students are expected to participate. The outlay for the festival is about Rs.1 crore and the prize money alone is pegged at Rs.18 lakh.

The five-day event is to be inaugurated on Wednesday. A laser show, a robotics show, a boomerangs workshop, an exhibition of hi-tech defence equipment and a design contest for a transport model for Chennai are few of the many events at Shaastra.

A Renault Formula One car from France and a wind turbine from Denmark will be given pride of place during the festival.

The highlight of the ‘spirit of engineering’ projects this year is the ‘Want to Fly 2’ unmanned aerial vehicle that can fly within given global positioning system coordinates. The departmental open house will give an opportunity to students and the public to view the research facilities in the institute.

V.G. Idichandy, Dean of Students, said the festival helps students to learn a lot as they organised it on their own and out of interest. Companies are eager to recruit students who have experience organising such events, he added.

His colleague T.S. Natarajan, co-curricular affairs advisor, agreed. Students can work in their area of interest and participate in interactive lectures at the festival, he said. This year, IIT-Madras has collaborated with the Defence Research and Development Organisation and the Indian Army to showcase radars, Brahmos missiles, the T-70 tank and models of Agni.

Science fiction writing, speed math and screening of documentaries and films also find a place in the technical extravaganza. For more details, log on to www. shaastra.org/2008/Main.

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