News
Monday, June 11, 2012
Students to raise Pakistani flag at Shell Eco MarathonBy Asad Farooq
KARACHI: Pakistani youth have been in international limelight, particularly for the last several years with their outshining and outstanding skills. This July, several teams of students from different universities, including National University of Science and Technology, are going to participate in the ‘Shell Eco Marathon,’ due in Germany. It’s an international event being organised for the last three decades on an annual basis. Initially, the marathon was organised at one place but is now being organised at different venues. There were various types of cadres of competition based on the fuel types including gasoline, solar energy, ethanol and hydrogen. The festival was indeed a competition of cars, prepared by students that consume minimal fuel.
Mukaram Raza is one of the brilliant final year students of engineering at NUST who successfully invented a single seater that would consume only a litre of fuel for going a 110 kilometre Formula 1 racetrack.
Talented and determinant Mukaram Raza recently visited the Daily Times to share his experiences and views.
To a question: what are your feelings after completing the project? Mukaram said: “I don’t think that we have completed our work yet. Yes, we have completed a phase of it, but the real test is yet to come. Competing against the rest of Asia, lifting Pakistan’s flag and keeping it high amidst other nations’ and doing so winning something will be the real victory. At the moment, we are feeling a soaring sense of responsibility. Going in the competition, to perform well, securing Pakistan’s pride and showing the world that Pakistanis are second to none are our prime objectives. “If we manage to achieve all this, then I’ll tell what are our feelings.”
To another question: what hurdles did you and your companions faced?
He said: “Everything has a price these days and financial problems are the most significant out of the rest. Initially, we barely had enough money to start this project as it was a costly venture to step in. All the work was done in bits and pieces. We ran short of finances on the very first day. It often happened that we worked on a certain area and ran out of money. Then we had to wait for some financial support for the proceedings to be resumed. Secondly, what really put us on the back foot was the lack of adequate technical support. Other teams from Asia have a relatively easy access to better and cheaper technology than us. We simply couldn’t afford much to purchase parts from markets outside Pakistan.
He said, “It was the most difficult task of my entire life. This project had a really broad spectrum and to cover all the aspects was an uphill climb for us. Manufacturing vehicles, finding potential sponsors, generating awareness about this project through media, making arrangements for the shipment of the vehicle, we had to take care of all these things along with many others. This activity alone is quite a tough exercise but to carry it forward along with the routine semester studies made it even tougher.”
To a question: how did you counter the challenges?, Makaram sadi, “Our entire team that included our team leader Kinza Basit, Junaid Allaudin, Abdullah Naeem, Muzmil Safdar and Haseeb Haider did a brilliant job. All team members were very supportive, the core factor that helped us complete task, after the blessings of Almighty.
He said: “It took us almost eight months to sum this whole thing up. The first one was the design and review phase. We had to submit our proposed design of the vehicles, which had to follow all the set rules and parameters listed down by Shell Eco Marathon Asia. Not many teams clear out this phase as non-compliance with the rules can lead to disqualification. Alhumdulilah our design was reviewed and duly accepted which confirmed us a berth for the next phase.”
Second step was the fabrication of body and chassis. Focusing on the fuel efficiency cause, we selected glass fiber for the fabrication of the body, the lightest material available at our desired cost. Next up was the selection of suitable material for manufacturing of chassis. We chose a honeycomb material for its attributes of being light and on the same time being really strong. The material was excellent to serve for our need, but it was really expensive and the worst part, it wasn’t available in Pakistan. We did compromise on the quality of materials being utilised due to non-availability of funds but we somehow managed to purchase honeycomb. With the manufacturing of body and chassis, the skeleton of our vehicle was complete.
“Third was the engine and transmission phase, which was duly completed, incorporated with the vehicle’s skeleton to finally finish things off for the manufacturing phase. I would reiterate that remained totally uncertain about the completion of this project as went short on finances repeatedly during the due course. But we are really thankful to our university for somehow taking care of the expense for the manufacturing phase. But we had to make for the expenditures of team’s traveling and vehicle’s shipment at our own which was a huge ask. We pitched our proposal to almost 150 companies and out of these only 20 called us to the table to discuss this thing in detail. Out of 20 only 3 agreed to the terms and conditions to sponsor us. We are grateful to Toyota Indus Motor Company Ltd, DHL Global Forwarding Pakistan and Djuice Telenor for coming forward to support us. Moreover, a gesture of gratitude for STEM-HEC for providing adequate funding in the hour of need.”
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk