Teams From Varanasi, Delhi and Vellore Emerge Winners at Shell Eco-marathon
Shell India conducted the first edition of its ‘Make the Future India’, a festival of ideas and innovation, that featured the Shell Eco-marathon, a competition for students who are passionate about developing innovative mobility solutions.
Students from Indian Institute of Technology — Banaras Hindu University, Delhi Technical University and VIT University were felicitated for building energy-efficient vehicles, that went farthest with the least amount of energy.
“Shell Make the Future is a platform that encourages conversation, collaboration and affirmative action around the world’s energy challenges. Endeavours like ‘Make the Future’ are essential and may help find some solutions to meet the growing energy demand. Shell India stays committed to our ambition to power India’s progress with more and cleaner energy solutions- through our people, partnerships and innovations- for India and the world. India has been part of the Shell Eco-marathon for eight years now and this year we have witnessed participation from close to 250 engineering students at the Shell Eco-marathon. We believe that these engineers define the future of mobility and can play an integral role in India’s energy transition,” said Nitin Prasad, Chairman, Shell Companies in India.
Shell Eco-marathon results
Team DTU Supermileage claimed victory in the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) Urban Concept category by achieving a mileage of 154 km/l. This is the equivalent of driving from Chennai to Pondicherry on 1 liter of fuel.
Team Averera from IIT-BHU achieved an astounding 362.5 km/kWh in the Prototype Battery Electric Category, which is the equivalent of driving from Chennai to Bangalore on a single unit of electricity.
The winning teams took home prize money totalling INR 20 Lacs.
On-track Awards
Teams were crowned the winners under different categories:
Team DTU Supermileage from Delhi Technical University was named the winner in the ICE Urban Concept Category.
Team Eco Titans from VIT University was named the winner in the ICE Prototype Category.
Team AVERERA from Indian Institute of Technology — Banaras Hindu University was named the winner in the Battery Electric Prototype category
Off-Track Awards
Students are also recognised for their technical innovation, design, safety and perseverance.
Team AVERERA from Indian Institute of Technology — Banaras Hindu University was awarded the Safety Awards. Safety was effectively employed into the core of their design with impressive risk assessment studies. The team also displayed exceptional safety practices in their garage by maintaining a very orderly work environment free from avoidable hazards. The team also carried out travel risk assessment.
Team Methodos from Government Engineering College, Barton Hill was awarded The Jugaad Award (Technical Innovation) for their use of bamboo for the body. Alternative materials that not only meets performance requirements but also consumes less energy during the lifecycle.
Team AVERERA from Indian Institute of Technology — Banaras Hindu University won the The Kahani Award (Communications) for outstanding integrated communication approach for creating awareness and support for their team for Shell Eco-marathon India. The wide range of stakeholders they have reached out, their communications mix and use of multiple channels and platforms were both effective and innovative in meeting their objectives.
The Make the Future festival, which commenced on December 6th, 2018, saw a series of activities. People from academia and government, school children, industry representatives and members of the public were taken on a journey to explore ideas and innovation on the future of mobility. It also saw the unveiling of the world’s first flat-pack truck — the OX. The festival also brought together industry partners and expert at the Business Forum to discuss the transition to low-carbon energy.
NXplorers Program
Announced at the Make the Future Festival, the NXplorers program is a global initiative to build critical thinking and complex problem-solving skills in school children in the age group of 14–19 years. It equips students with tools and skills necessary to address real-world issue of food-energy-water nexus. The effort is to make them positive agents of change for a sustainable future. Shell is currently implementing this program in 14 countries across the world.
Partnered with a specialized organization in education, Learning Links Foundation, the NXplorers program runs in school where teachers and students learn the NXplorers methodologies and tools and engage in addressing real-world issues. The plan is to implement the program in almost 200 schools across states like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Delhi-NCR in the first year of its implementation. In the next three years, Shell aims to take NXplorers program to 2,60,000 students in over 3,000 schools. During the three-year period, the educational program will also inspire young students, especially girls to take up STEM and related fields for higher education.
In the last six months, students have worked on several projects out of which the best four were put on display at the Experiential Zone. The projects on display include a smart irrigation device that can monitor the moisture content of the soil and turn on the water pump automatically whenever the moisture drops below a threshold value; Seedographer, a device that increases the resource use efficiency of seed sowing in agricultural fields. Also, on display is a smart drainage system that can divert wastewater from the storm drains, manholes and direct the same for agricultural purposes after passing through a purification process; last but not the least, a project that proposes to create energy from food waste through the process of anaerobic digestion.
