Institute Technical Summer Projects 2014

If you had visited IIT Bombay anytime this summer, you would have noticed a large number of freshmen toiling away, day and night, at the labs in the institute. Now, you may wonder why students would forego their well-earned vacations to stay back in the scorching heat of Mumbai. ITSP is the reason why.

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What is ITSP?

Institute Technical Summer Projects (ITSP), a brainchild of the Students’ Technical Activities Body (STAB), is a platform provided to the freshmen of IITB in the summers to explore the “Techie” within them. ITSP began in 2010 and the number of freshmen registering for it has grown from 16 in 2010 to 121 in 2014. 74 out of the 121 projects in 2014 were completed and demonstrated by freshmen during the summers. The way ITSP works is this – Freshmen are first required to submit an abstract of their dream project, which are then verified by a team of helpful and dedicated seniors, suggestions are provided and projects are approved. Before finalizing the projects, 2-3 brainstorming sessions are organised where seniors are available to check the feasibility of the project ideas. Now comes the fun part. [pullquote]Making these projects doesn’t cost the students a single rupee! The entire cost of the project is reimbursed by the institute.[/pullquote] Approved freshmen teams get to work on their dream project for 45 days in the summer and the best part is – it doesn’t cost them a single rupee! The entire cost of the project is reimbursed by the institute. Sessions are organised on common topics like Image Processing, Solidworks, Eagle etc. that are used in almost every other project.

Mission & Vision

IITs, being Institutes of “Technology”, are expected have an atmosphere conducive for pursuing interests in technical activities. ITSP is a step taken by the student body in this direction. If a student has a dream project in mind, then lack of resources, either monetary or intellectual, should not be a barrier in the path of achieving this dream. [pullquote]If a student has a dream project in mind, then lack of resources, either monetary or intellectual, should not be a barrier in the path of achieving this dream.[/pullquote] This is the driving principle behind ITSP.

Emphasis is laid on building scalable products which could be potentially identified as disruptive innovations in a range of fields. This year, two major elements of ITSP were:
1). Product development aspects i.e. design and aesthetics
2). Associating their project with some real life world problem

The idea is that projects can be implemented in the real world after their successful completion and hence can be of some use to the Indian society and industry.

Selected Projects
In the fourth installment of ITSP, there were a bunch of innovative projects which aimed to solve prevalent problems with a new approach. Here are a few of them:

Intelligent Walking Stick for the blind

• Detects obstacles using ultrasonic sensors
• Generates audio commands to guide the user so as to avoid obstacles within his/her immediate vicinity
• Easily attachable to a walking stick

Sound Following Robot : Vision for blind using ultrasonic sensors

• Industrial design project, can be used in security surveillance areas
• Provides artificial guidance to the visually impaired
• Ultrasonic sensors are used to detect the presence of obstacles to find a suitable path and vocally communicate it to the user

Gesture Talk Project for the dumb

• Glove that converts gestures into words that are displayed on a computer screen
• Each gesture is a combination of finger movements and corresponds to a letter
• An improved version is being envisioned which could convert gestures to speech

Surveillance Bot

• Consists of a camera mounted on a surveillance bot
• This bot is capable of attaching on any surface that is detachable
• The device can move on any surface like wall, floor, or ceiling using vacuum pump and suction cups

Drishti : Automatic Book Reader for blind People:

• Takes images of pages and uses image processing and text-to speech conversion methods to read out the text aloud
• Could potentially end the need for special books for the blind and make all kinds of books accessible to them

Blaze Skaters:

• Easily portable shoes with remote controlled braking system, speedometer, odometer and obstacle sensing
• Lightweight skates which can be easily carried in your backpack (usually skates are pretty heavy)
• They have a handheld braking mechanism which is helpful to new learners and also can tell you the speed at which you’re skating and if there are any obstacles you need to avoid

Monkey Pole Climbing Robot

• Industrial Design Project; can be used in security/surveillance areas
• The robot can climb over poles with bends
• Has applications in areas like military operations, fire fighting operations, repair work for electric poles, spying etc.

Invisible Braille Reader

• Portable device that helps blind people to read books
• Consists of a hand glove with mini actuators present at the fingertips which would give a vibrotactile Braille impression on the corresponding fingers of the blind person
• Aims at eliminating the need for Braille books which are expensive and not easily available

Holographic Keyboard

• Inspired by the ‘Sixth Sense’ technology pioneered by Pranav Mistry
• Practically, any surface can be converted into a virtual keyboard with this device

H-SQUARE : Hovercraft + Helicopter

• It is essentially a hovercraft with a potential to convert into a helicopter by changing the orientation of it’s propellers
• Has unique applications in the field of security surveillance
• The operation of H-SQUARE required only one motor

Differential Tracking

• Minimizes the error of GPS by using more than one GPS module in an RC plane; real time tracking of the planes path
• The plane is made of Balsa wood and high performance components are used to test the tracking potential of the plane in all three dimensions

Mobile Controlled RC Plane

• An RC Plane which is controlled using an Android Mobile Application
• The device can now be controlled using both a transmitter and an Android phone