Project Aman

Well, aerodynamics! For a final year project in Mechanical Engineering. Possible? Main Hoon Naa?

Let's see how it all began. We [Anjan, Megh, Niranjan and I] had, in the beginning, decided to work on a project that one of our seniors had done before. After trying a whole lot of other possibilities Niranjan got a fresh brain wave about a guy in Bangalore, who he then thought was an aeromodeler [I didn't know what that meant when I first spoke to him]. Anyway, I gave him a call, struck a deal and we were off to Bangalore the very next week.

Over the phone I expected Adarsh to be a 25 year-old in jeans. He turned out to be a 30 year old management graduate [he is the Senior Manager in the circulation division of Deccan Herald] decked up in formals. He was a very friendly person to speak with. And he gave us a few options which we could consider.... We were amazed by every one of them. Even you will be:
They were (1)An aircraft made from locally available materials, (2)A model truck that could do 0 to 60 in 3 sec and (3)An ornithopter. We had already decided by then that this would be the guy with whom we would be doing our project. He was the man! We decided on the first option after a long thought.

After a small break for our exams [and holidays in between] we finally got down to work. This was the really interesting part. We made [fabricated] the plane from scratch. Ananth [a 2004 passout from NIE mechanical] helped us with the wing and all the portion that had to do with plastic [he is aSPAD freak]. He has always been very concerned about our project and I'm sure will see to it that we do a good job of our project report. It is because of his continuous pestering that we have finally got started with the project report. Thanks a lot, Ananth, for getting the ball rolling. Now hope we can continue with this initial momentum.

The fuse[lage]! We built that part with the help of another person called Shivkumar. He has great workmanship and is filled to the brim with ideas. A fun person to be with. He worked even as we drank juice! [as in the pic] He spent quite a lot of his [precious] time on our model, something for which we should have expected to compensate him for. But, we were first timers to this and were least expecting him to ask us for a sum of 2 grand. We were taken by surprise at first, but later I understood that it was quite obvious and right. The hilarious part of all this was that he too was charging-for-his-time for the first time and didn't know how much to expect! Anyway, all's well that ends well. The model was completed and done with. We were happy and so was he!

This article, I wrote because I didn't want to forget about the initial stages of the project. It is in a kind of a stall right now. I hope that this is only temporary and also wish that Aman will take to the skies as soon as possible.

I'm sure that this is a great project but we need to keep the momentum going for it to materialise. Instead of waiting for things to happen I feel that we ourselves should take the initiative and go on till the end. We need to get more involved. I'm sure we can pull it off. Anjan, Megh, Niranjan and obviously Aditya...... Come on. Buck up!

I will make sure I write an article to follow this up to tell you about the developments that will take place till the day of the demonstration.

AMAN