from Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Panaji (GA)

Panaji, Sep 6: The final year project of a team of four students from the electronics and telecommunication branch of Goa College of Engineering namely, Nishchai Nitin Nevrekar, Akshay Pandharkar, Ganesh Munj and Laukik Desai has been shortlisted for the prestigious Innovative Student Projects Awards – 2008 at the all India-level for their working model of the Mimicking Robotic Arm.

The project was undertaken under the able guidance of Prof Shajahan Kutty, GEC and Gajanan Navelkar (Scientist NIO).  This is the first time a project from the State has been shortlisted for the awards by the Indian National Academy of Engineering, New Delhi.

The academy has instituted the award to identify innovative and creative research projects undertaken by students and scholars in engineering institutions of government, private, defence services technical institutions, to give early recognition of merit and talent and incentives for the beginning of a brilliant career.

The model Mimicking Robotic Arm imitates the movement of the human elbow joint, wrist join and fingers when the sensor set-up is fitted on one's arm connected through a network (LAN,WiFi etc.). The connectivity and the configuration are maintained by the software.  The whole set-up inclusive of software and hardware (electronic circuits) was made by the four students in-house.

It was selected and forwarded by Chetan Desai (lecturer, E&TC) and nominated by Dr R B Lohani (HoD, E&TC) to compete with projects all over India.

The group has already won awards at the inter-collegiate technical festivals in Goa namely Technosangram (at GEC), Aavishakar (at PCCE) etc.