Facebook troll pages never run dry of onions and petrol priced higher than gold. And in this era back in 2011, a couple of electrical and mechanical final year students from Sir M. Visvesvaraya Institute of Technology under the able guidance of Dr. M.C. Math formed Team Inferno, which developed a car with a mileage of 240 Km/L. Read on to know more about Drona, their super mileage vehicle which won accolades in Shell Eco Marathon 2012 and Project Vidur, new version of car ready to participate in Shell Eco Marathon 2014.

D-R-O-N-A

This car was equipped with a highly customizable Bajaj engine, with an electronic fuel injection system in place. The chassis of the body was made entirely of aluminium. The aluminium, while light, provided strength and stability to the vehicle. After a thorough CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics)analysis, an FRP (Fiber-Reinforced Plastic) outer shell was mounted on the chassis to satisfy aerodynamic requirements. It had successfully achieved a mileage of over 240 km/L at the event. It is a super mileage vehicle that was built to take part at the prestigious Shell Eco Marathon in 2012 at the Sepang International Circuit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Shell Eco-Marathon is an international competition which challenges student teams from around the world to design, build and test energy efficient machines. Team Inferno was adjudged best Indian team at the competition and has received commendable media mentions post the competition. This team was the first Indian team to cleared Shell’s stringent safety and technical inspection on their maiden entry back in 2012.

Industry Stalwarts like Anand Mahindra tweeted about their super mileage vehicle Drona when they showcased it at IMS 2012, under the innovation pavilion

V-I-D-U-R

Team Inferno has cleared technical round at first shot & been listed to participate in the 2014 edition of SEM which is to be held in Manila coming February (2014). Keeping in mind the ever developing automotive sector, TeamInferno are now working towards enhancing the overall performance of the vehicle- safety, technical aspects of the car and the aesthetics. The enhanced version being named Vidur, the key areas of improvement include Optimizing chassis design resulting in weight reduction(Aluminum Chassis), Engine modifications, Electronic Fuel Injection among others.

Team Inferno has managed to raise 6.4 lakhs out of the 10 Lakhs required for the completion of Project Vidur by pooling in Individual money, college grant , Project Grant from Shell for good performance and some generous sponsors.  The team still requires funding of 3.45 lakhs to meet the expenses and get ready for the participation. 

Here is the personal appeal from Avinash Hegde, Team Lead for Team Inferno :

Projects like this are a big step towards industry academia relationship. As engineers, we focus on building to notch products & look forward to association with various companies. Apart from technical & innovative potential we also offer corporates various avenues for brand visibility such as at events including tech exhibitions, college fests & SEM itself. Our online presence & our social media are poised towards this direction as well. We are still in our sponsorship drive and are hoping one of your readers is impressed and comes forward to sponsor us.

We @ TTP urge the readers of this post to connect Avinash Hegde([email protected]) with any sponsors you think might be interested to support Project Vidur.