Virtual presentation

Virtual presentation is a national level presentation event in which the teams registered for the SAE NIS Efficycle competitions are supposed to present the design of the vehicle before well experienced judges from reputed automobile companies. More than 250 teams registered for the competition out of which 90 teams will be selected for the final competitions.

Every subsystem of the vehicle such as roll cage, steering, brakes, suspension had to be carefully chosen and their choice justified. The various parameters such as turning radius, stopping distance, weight and all were to be calculated.



Our team comprised of 8 students from Mechanical Engineering and 2 from Mechatronics Engineering. S.S. Nizamudheen (4th year Mechanical) and Mounikrishna A.V (3rd year Mechanical) was selected as the Captain and Vice-Captain. The teams were divided based on the various subsystems and had to collaborate with the team heads of other subsystems. Sasikumar (4th year Mechanical) lead the Design team and Sabari, Satheesh (3rd year Mechanical) took care of the calculations. We were guided by the Mr. Y Ras Mathew (Asst. Prof. of Mechanical Department and Vigneshwar P (Alumni – Mechanical Department). A weekly report of the team’s progress was submitted to Dr. K. Siva (Head of Mechanical department).

The first and foremost target of our team was to get cleared for the Virtual rounds. Vignesh Anna and I were the Captain and Vice Captain of the previous year’s Efficycle team. He was able to guide us with the most common mistake every team makes and paid to special attention rectify out these defects. A lot of iterations were made in the design of the tricycle and stayed back till nearly 2AM in the college to finish our work on the design and presentation.

Left to Right : Aby T Joseph, D.Sasikumar, Mounikrishna

I, Sasikumar and Mounikrishna were to attend the Virtual presentation. All of the team members wished us the best and it was all in our hands to repay the hardwork of the entire team. The Virtual presentation was held on 29th June, 2014 in Rajalakshmi Institute of Technology, Chennai. All of us were tensed as it was the first time we were facing such a panel of eminent judges. 20 minutes were allotted for the presentation followed by 10 minutes of question and answer session.

We were told strictly that we’ll be allowed only ten minutes. We explained about our tricycle and justified the selection of the various subsystems. We did include animation of our suspension systems and our innovations (automatic gear changer and adjustable pedaling system). The judges were satisfied with our presentation and particularly praised our design. The judges asked about the weight of our vehicle and few other questions. They then asked us about our plan to build the vehicle and gave their suggestions. We felt so happy with their positive comments and informed the judges’ comments to our faculty advisor and teammates.

Aby Thannikal Joseph

B.E. Mechatronics Engineering

Hindusthan College of Engineering and Technology (2011 - 2015 Batch)