Remember the creative little flying machine with a camera attached to it, created by the character Joy Lobo and perfected by Rancho in the movie '3 Idiots'? Well, the students of NIT-C can feel proud that their fellow batchmates have created a similar one, which they used successfully during Ragam 2014, the annual cultural fest of NIT-C.
Kunal Kamble (civil engneering), Ashib M Ashraf (second year mechanical engineering), Laxmikant Banjarey (final year civil engineering) and G B Koushik Rata (second year mechanical engineering) are the four undergraduate students behind the creation. They call themselves ‘Aero Unwire' and started working on this project four years ago. Fours years later and with several modifications, the team finally launched the quadrotor ‘Vidyuth.' A quadrotor, which is also known as a quadcopter, is a multicopter lifted using four rotors. This team of gizmo freaks mounted a camera on to it and launched this outstanding creation, one of the first from NITC during their techfest Tathva.Vidyuth was a show-stealer when it came flying out of nowhere right into the centre of activity at Ragam 2014 on the first day of the fest. With little red and green flashlights to its end, the quadrotor was a sure head-tilter. Students clapped, cheered and gathered under it and waved at the camera. Ragam was captured from a bird's eye view for the first time that day!
“We had spent close to `2 lakh on building the machine,” says Kunal Kamble, a student of NIT and a member of Aero Unwire. When asked who funded the construction, Kamble says with an impish grin, “We traded old parts and stuff.”
The quadrotor was updated with a stabilisation unit after its first launch during Thathva.
It can now tilt and rotate 360 degrees with a 5,200 mAH battery and can keep flying for up to 30 minutes straight. It is attached with a GoPro Plus Black edition, which is most widely used in such machines.
The Vidyuth created history on the campus when it flew right into the centre of the jampacked open stage during Farhan Akhtar's live performance. The crowd, which was already brimming with excitement, simply exploded into a loud cheer when this tiny machine flew right on top of them and started capturing their faces.