CHENNAI: Indian Institute of Technology Madras Centre For Innovation’s Annual ‘Open House’ event, which showcases students’ innovative tech projects, returned to a physical mode this year. Opened to business and industry leaders, alumni, faculty and students, the CFI Open House 2022 was held today (13th March 2022) in the campus, featuring over 60 projects.
Further, for the first time, the event was also accessible on a Metaverse Platform called ‘Gather Town’ to a limited audience this year. The students developed a virtual world to showcase their innovations to other stakeholders not present physically.
More than 1,500 people, including around 100 eminent industrialists and IIT Madras Alumni, participated in-person with another 500 taking part virtually through ‘Gather Town.’
The Centre for Innovation is India’s largest student-run 24/7 innovation lab, home to 13 clubs, four competition teams and more than 700 members. It provides a unique platform for the students of IIT Madras to apply their engineering knowledge and materialise their ideas into products.
Speaking after inaugurating the Event, Prof V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said, “Innovation is the heart of any academic institution. This activity taken up by CFI provides not only a platform for young innovators to showcase their creations but serves as a great source of inspiration for other young students to innovate.”
Prof. Kamakoti also launched the new CFI website during the occasion – https://cfi.iitm.ac.in/
Speaking about CFI, Prof. Nilesh Vasa, Dean (Students), IIT Madras, said, “The CFI is a student-driven facility, which inspires students to work creatively and in a collaborative manner towards new technological developments. Open house organized by the CFI will showcase the affiliated team’s achievements and dreams which they would like to implement towards realizing the novel technological frontiers.”
The Open House hosted projects such as CFI Team Abhiyaan’s autonomous vehicle called the ‘Bolt,’ Team Abhyuday’s rocket, Team Avishkar’s Hyperloop, a ‘Sports Science and Analytics’ Projects done in collaboration with Sports Science Centre of Excellence, IIT Madras, a Bird Diverter project undertaken in partnership with Wildlife Institute Of India, and projects on Blockchain Technology. The event will also host numerous industry-proposed projects such as the Job Aggregator project with TMI Group and the Dental Implant Project.
Highlighting the unique aspects of CFI Open House 2022, Prof. Prabhu Rajagopal, Faculty Advisor, CFI-IIT Madras, said, “The CFI is one of the most energizing and constructive activities at IIT Madras, where students come together to ‘learn by doing’ and self-organize to develop solutions for industrial and societal problem statements. Today nearly 10 per cent of IIT Madras Students are engaged with CFI and this cuts across the undergraduate-postgraduate ‘divide’.”
Prof. Prabhu Rajagopal added, “A number of CFI projects and teams have over the years ‘graduated’ to form the core of successful start-ups such as HyperVerge, Planys and Tvasta. The Open House is the largest calendar event of CFI, showcasing the best of the years’ student projects.”
Further, Prof. Asokan Thondiyath, Faculty Advisor, Team Anveshak, CFI-IIT Madras, said, “Over the years CFI has helped the student community to realise its potential and make some brave steps in experimenting with the technology. Happy to know that Team Anveshak has steadily progressed in the last three years and is in a very advanced stage with the new rover named ‘Foresight.’ The custom-made wheels, lightweight manipulator, and state-of-the-art electronic system ensures that Foresight can operate seamlessly and reliably.”
Since CFIs’ inception, multiple student ventures have been patented with numerous student proposed projects winning accolades in national and international contests. Furthermore, various startups have also emerged as a part of CFI over the years. Despite the pandemic slowing down the usual course of events, the clubs and competition teams have initiated commendable new projects in the past year.
Sharing their experience on working on these projects, Mr. Dhanveerraj J.M., Student Executive Head, CFI-IIT Madras, said, “Starting from a completely online year that brought various challenges, the competition teams have performed exceptionally well in the international competitions and have brought CFI and IIT Madras immense pride. The clubs have made leaps in their projects and have taken up various industry proposed projects and many new initiatives. Even with all the odds stacked against us in these trying times of Covid, the teams have not let their innovating minds sink down.”
Mr. Nitish Gupta, Co-Curricular Affairs Secretary, IIT Madras, said, “CFI has been an amazing platform for students to work on their ideas and propose projects through SIP (Student Innovation Program) – which further strengthens the CFI’s motto of ‘Walk in with an idea, walk out with a product. ’ In addition to this, the student innovation lab has been successful in attracting and working together with various industries on multiple projects like the Bird Diverter project in association with the Wildlife Institute of India.”
The New Developments at CFI include:
Ø CFI developed the chennaiwaterlogging.org, a platform that enables users/the public to report details such as flood location and water depth and add photos of flood sites with a description in the Chennai region. All reports are gathered onto a real-time flood map. The data collected through this platform aims to improve disaster preparedness and response in communities by gathering, sorting, and presenting flooding reports.
Ø Team Abhiyaan, the autonomous navigation team, has transformed an electric golf cart into an autonomous shuttle. They will give a live demonstration of the vehicle’s autonomous navigation over a course, including obstacle avoidance, pedestrian detection, and parallel parking, at the CFI Open House 2022.
Ø Team Abhyuday, the rocketry team of IITM, successfully qualified for the finals of the Spaceport America Cup in its very first attempt. The Spaceport America Cup is an annual international event for intercollegiate rocketry teams across the globe, and its finals will take place in June 2022 in New Mexico, USA. Team Abhyuday is the first-ever team across all IITs to qualify for this prestigious event.
Ø Raftar Formula Racing marked a significant new milestone by switching from combustion engines to electric engines this year, in line with the global call for sustainability in the automotive industry. They won the Overall Championship in the Electric Category at Formula Bharat Virtuals 21-22 held during October 2021.
Ø The Electronics Club and the Product Design Club have combined cutting-edge optical engineering with electronics to integrate a navigation application to develop a Heads-Up-Display Helmet. It will be helpful for food delivery partners in navigating traffic and enable them to be more focused on the road.
Ø In association with the Engineering Unit of IIT Madras, CFI had developed the CLinsti App for solid waste management and ensuring cleanliness in IIT Madras. Through the app, residents and students of IIT Madras can post requests concerning waste management within the institute. The users will be updated on the request’s status in the app in real-time. Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Former Director of IIT Madras, officially launched the app in on 2nd October 2021.
