Students use Make-a-Thon to solve problems of industry

In this unique, event the students, designers and hackers collaborated for limited time to deliver solutions to various challenges proposed by industries, medical practitioners, researchers and development organizations. 

“The purpose of the Make-a-Thon is to motivate students and the industry as well as academia to interact and innovate with each other. Here the problem of the industry is undertaken by the students as a challenge and they create a prototype of the solution as well as a business plan,” Dr P Arulmozhivarman, Professor and Dean, School of Electrical Engineering, VIT University, said. 

This year, Make-a-Thon saw 306 registered participants that were finally shortlisted by the organizers to 180. 

In this, students of VIT University from the first year to third year engineering courses, were divided into 43 teams under six different categories. 

The teams were judged for their solutions in the fields of Energy and Environmental Monitoring, Robotics and Industrial automation, Smart Agriculture, Smart Energy Harvesting, IoT and Sensors for Smart city, data security and networks and Public Awareness.

Of the 43 teams, at the end of 36 hours of Make-a-Thon, 40 teams qualified.

The industry collaborators for the competition included Inphase, Bengaluru, Vi Microsystems, Enthu Technologies, Johnson Control, Pune, Danfoss, Janitri, Bosch, Cardea Labs, and GLR Laboratories, Chennai. 

Industry experts and professors of various disciplines reviewed the Make-a-Thon projects presented by the students and finally 10 best projects were adjudged as the finalists of the Makea-Thon, a VIT release said. 

Interestingly, students who excel in this competition are offered internships in some of the best companies from the six industries. 

To motivate and help them innovate VIT University also awards Rs 10,000 to the first prize winner, Rs 7,500 to the second prize winner and Rs 5,000 to the third prize winner. 

Dr Arulmozhivarman said the top 10 teams were awarded internships and the university provided all the machine tools and fabrication tools for the participants to work easily and effortlessly.”