Engineering students lament lack of corporate, govt support

As a 16-member team from NUST prepares to take part in an international competition next year, the problems they have faced allow for an interesting look into the industry and what young engineers have to work through

Karachi

Governments and industrialists do not offer financial and technical support at a macro level to enable students to turn projects into commercial successes.

This is the opinion of Talha Saleem, a student of Pakistan Navy Engineering College of the National University of Sciences & Technology (PNEC-NUST) and part of a team that designed the prototype of a fuel-efficient and light-weight smart car to be put in the race to win the Shell Eco-Marathon (SEM) to be held in Manila, Philippines, in March 2016.

Saleem believes that he and his team can make the car into a commercial success. “We can make the necessary modifications, but all we need to make this a commercial success is support and supervision from an established company.”

Rahim Rasool, another member of the 16-member team, said the group had also thought about several other modifications that could make the car commercially successful. “At present, we are aiming to win the competition. If we are given a chance, we can also design a four-seater car since two-seater cars are not very popular in Pakistan due to their lack of capacity.”

Talking to The News, the 16-member team discussed different features of the two-seater prototype, listing its fuel efficiency, lightness eco-friendliness as being the salient features.

“We have reduced the weight of the car by about half as compared to the last car designed at our

campus for the same competition,” said Ayesha Sipra, team manager of the group participating in SEM.

“So far we have spent around Rs600,000 to build the car. We have used aluminium instead of steel, used in the previous model, enabling us to design a car that weighs much less.”

To a query, Sipra said the durability of the car would not be compromised because of using aluminium. “We have placed proper support at its pressure points, avoiding any risk of rupture and breakage,” she said.

The car would run on petrol with a tentative fuel mileage of 100 kilometres per litre, she added.

Other students working on the project are Abdul Rehman, Hamid Siddiqui, Ammad Yousuf, Haroon Waseem, Sharoz Habib, Sharjeel Khalid, Asad Mughal, Ahmed Ali, Daim Ali, Adeel Ali Khan, Hamza Husain, Hamza Butt and Afira.

 

The marathon

According to the SEM organisers, the competition challenges the teams to design, build and test ultra energy-efficient vehicles with the winners being the teams whose vehicles travel the furthest using the least amount of energy.

Around 140 teams of students from 18 countries across Asia, Australia and the Middle East have registered in two different categories: Prototype: designing aerodynamic and fuel efficient vehicles; and Urban Concept: designing economical and innovative vehicles.

The winning teams in both categories receive a prize of up to $2,000 for their school.

Pakistan, being the first country from the South Asia, started participating in the marathon from the year 2009 at the event that held at Berlin, Germany’s capital.

So far, the highest rank achieved by a Pakistani team is 3rd in the Urban Concept; designing economical and innovative vehicle, which was attained by Team Econova from the Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences.