Students across IITs, NITs are using their engineering training to innovate

NEW DELHI: Rahul Singh from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar, recently landed an internship with the multinational JSW Group. He credits US-based non-profit, Maker Bhavan’s Invention Factory programme for that achievement.

He attended the six-week programme held earlier in IIT Bombay. Parallelly, it was held in IIT Gandhinagar and IIT Jammu. Intended to encourage the invention of new products that solve real-life problems, the programme helped him realise he wanted to be a product manager. “My team not only won the first prize, [the programme] helped me realise my dream to be a product manager,” said Singh.

Singh and his partner, Chirag Satpathy from National Institute of Technology (NIT) Tiruchirappalli, won the first prize at the edition of the Invention Factory at IIT Bombay. Their product was a safety feature for gas stoves in the form of a knob that turns the gas off.

The Invention Factory helped them develop skills to build a product from scratch and the skills to present, communicate and market it, said Singh. The duo plan to use the Rs. 2 lakh prize money to scale up their prototype and apply for a patent in India.

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The ‘Invention Factory’

The Invention Factory’s main aim is to help students apply what they learn in engineering classrooms to building actual products. “What we actually knew from engineering, we applied in the programme which helped in product designing,” stated Akanksha Saini from IIT Jammu. Her team won first runner-up prize at IIT Bombay for their terracotta evaporative cooling container prototype which stores fruits and vegetables, and purifies water.

In total, nine teams won prizes across the three IIT campuses on their presentations, design thinking and prototypes. The first prize winners got Rs 2 lakh. The first runner-up team won Rs. 1 lakh and the second runner-up team, Rs. 50,000. The Invention Factory programme was held during the summer, over June and July.

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Winning ideas

Singh and Satpathy built an automatic gas shut-off knob attached to a gas stove. The primary functions of the knob are detecting gas leaks and providing remote control over the knob. “The main idea behind is to mitigate the potential dangers caused by undetected gas leaks,” said Satpathy.

At IIT Jammu, the first prize was won by a team which developed a prototype to address the problem of medicines not being properly administered through inhalers, leading to patients taking smaller doses or wasting. The team created a solution in the form of a passive asthma inhaler. “The programme helped us build something out of books and helped us give life to abstract ideas and build this product which was elegant yet simple,” said Muhammed Aslam S from NIT Calicut.

Further, at IIT Gandhinagar, its student Ishika Raj, and her teammate, Madhvi Dubey from IIT Kharagpur, built a wearable breast pump with a cold container attached to a bra which also serves as a storage device for breast milk. The idea came from a professor sharing the experience of his wife facing problems feeding their child in public.

All teams plan to file full-fledged patent applications in India to further develop their prototypes and introduce them as proper products in the market.

ChatGPT, learning tools

Many students learnt new tools and software like CAD, 3D printing and ChatGPT. “We learnt how to put in the correct prompts to get the best results through ChatGPT which helped us throughout the programme,” said Satpathy. Additionally, Dubey from IIT Kharagpur also found the process of patenting a very useful learning experience as was developing the skills of utilising theory in the real world. “In college we just learnt the skills of engineering and science but through the programme, we developed the skills for marketing and presenting,” she said.

While the final prototypes demanded a lot of experimentation and presented many challenges, the programme taught students to not only build products but also publicise them. “At the Invention Factory, we learnt to market and publicise our ideas along with a lot of testing,” said Satpathy.

Roshini S from IIT Madras who won the second runner-up prize at IIT Bombay said she learnt the skills of communication and presentation which are usually not taught in most engineering courses. Her team developed a support device specifically designed for induction stove tops.

BTech syllabus change

Many students suggested that the practical aspects of product design and building should be added to the regular engineering curriculum instead of remaining part of specialised programmes with select participants. Sanskar Purwar from IIT Jammu, whose team won the second runner-up prize at the IIT Jammu edition of the programme, said: “Invention Factory gave an environment of brainstorming on innovative ideas, researching and building something from scratch which is absent from the regular engineering curriculum. Through regular classroom courses, students usually get bored and just attend for marks and eventually lose interest. Students need this environment and mindset of building and not just rote learning.” His team built a device that utilises the steam generated from boiling milk to power a stirrer. This innovative device effectively breaks the surface tension of the milk’s top layer, preventing spills and overflow.

Arvind from IIT Madras also thinks that the engineering curriculum must add design thinking courses and inculcate the right atmosphere to influence students to solve problems through innovative products.

Some institutions have do-it-yourself courses but not like the Invention Factory one, Dubey said. “At IIT Kharagpur, all first-year BTech students have to pursue a DIY course with integration of sensors, IoT and specific technologies to make a workable design. But the Invention Factory helped us to make something novel. If something like this is practised in our curriculum, it will be valuable for engineers,” she added.

Nivedita Jha from IIT Jammu, whose team was the first runner-up at IIT Jammu, added that the engineering curriculum must include ways for students to gain hands-on learning and to use equipment. “Many students don’t know about the tinker’s labs or maker’s spaces in their institutes, and do not even know how to use machines,” added Jha. For the programme, her team developed gloves that dampen vibrations from power tools and motorcycles.

However, many students also found the timeframe given for ideation and development at the programme too brief. Dubey said, “Six weeks is a short time to invent something. The duration of the programme can be extended. If the ideation is given more time, I think it will be beneficial for students.”