Senthilkumar Subramanium’s heart skipped a beat when he was informed that the vehicle his team had developed for the Shell Eco-marathon 2014 was stuck in Singapore due to Customs glitches.

The 21-year-old from Madras Institute of Technology, along with a few other team-mates had slogged for months, building and designing the car which could be used in the competition before misfortune struck.

But fate had other plans as Subramanium’s team, Eco Warriors, had a few precious hours to quickly assemble another vehicle to run the race.

With the help of a local Filipino team, they managed to get a body and build a car just-in-time.

Perseverance For the participants, this was a moment of déjà vu as it tested not just their innovation but their perseverance in a time of crisis. Despite being faced with a funds crunch and logistical hurdles, a clutch of Indian students from over 12 universities spread across India put their blood and sweat in developing prototypes and urban concepts of futuristic vehicles that would consume less energy and be sustainable in nature.

At the just concluded Shell Eco-marathon Asia 2014, 105 such vehicles developed by students from 15 countries in Asia and the Middle East sped down the streets of Manila to test their fuel efficiency and ingenuity.

Shell first began hosting student Eco-marathon competitions in France in 1985.

For the Indian students, it was more than just an opportunity to test their engineering and problem-solving skills. It was also an initiative to design, build and drive the most fuel-efficient vehicle.

Jeremy Bentham, Shell’s Vice-President for Global Business Environment said, “More than ever before, the industry, government and public all have a joint responsibility to create efficient energy for the future. We must come together to collaborate in our efforts to meet these challenges for the future generations.” Himanshu Mallik (24) of Manav Rachna University said that although the students were given a small incubation fund, they largely had to rely on their own funds to develop their vehicles. Most of the vehicles were developed with a budget ranging from Rs 4 lakh to Rs 11 lakh.

This year’s Eco-marathon Asia was designed to test the boundaries of fuel efficiency in an urban setting by driving on the roads of Manila.

Street circuit Shell said that the street circuit reflects the objective of working better collectively on future technologies and energy and making mobility smarter for everyday use.

Akshay Deshpande (20), a student from VIT University, Vellore, said, “We don’t have adequate facilities for fabrication. Also our resources are limited unlike other international student teams. We are usually crunched for funds and it’s our initiative that sees us through such meets.”

Student teams are invited to participate in prototype or urban concept categories. While the prototype showcases the most aerodynamic and fuel-efficient vehicle possible, the urban concept category focuses on creating vehicles that would be road-worthy.

Overcoming the odds Students must complete 10 laps around a rectangular track with a distance of 1.2 km per lap. They are given the option of picking one of the seven fuel categories including gasoline, hydrogen fuel cells, biodiesel, natural gas, diesel and electric plug-in batteries.

Ankit Khurana, Faculty Director, Chitkara Institute of Engineering and Technology, Rajpura, also pointed that Customs clearances and lack of corporate sponsorships for such events were major issues. Senthilkumar’s team finally won the ‘Perseverance and Team Spirit Award’ for their efforts. He remarked, “This will definitely be a memory that will be etched forever. It’s sad that a nation of a billion people is unable to support teams that could clinch India many more awards in the future.”

To come back Despite the odds, students echoed in unison that they would indeed be back for the next edition as these tracks were the best to put their theoretical learning into action.

(This correspondent was in Manila at the invitation of Shell.)

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