A group of IIT students built an efficient pedal-powered vehicle from scratch. Now they aim to commercialise it.
Last summer, five IIT-Bombay students decided to create a human-energy-powered vehicle, which would look like a car but wouldn’t need petrol or diesel to run. The design that eventually was created was a tricycle-like vehicle that required the driver and sole occupant to pedal within the comfort of an aerodynamic shell cabin.
A team led by Abhinav Agarwal, a fourth-year student of civil engineering, with four third-year students, Ayush Chandak, Mayank Gupta, Pradeep Verma and Rohit Singwal, began the meticulous task of deciding how the vehicle would work. With the later addition of two more students, Kunal Verma and Alaukik Kumar, the seven-member IIT team invested four months in planning and deliberation before they went on to actually build Param.
About Param’s design, which makes it look like a cross between a three-wheeled rickshaw and a kiddy cycle, Mayank Gupta says, “We deliberately positioned the driver’s seat a few inches above ground at an angle that would make Param manoeuvrable and hassle-free.” The aerodynamic shell around the driver is crucial, Gupta explains, because it reduces drag, or wind resistance, and thereby helps increase the vehicle’s speed. During trial runs, the team claims to have achieved speeds of 70-80 kmph.
Feedback from professors and suggestions from college friends led the team to incorporate utilities like a windscreen, headlights, horn and reflectors into the single-seater vehicle. Intended for commuting within a big campus or for short distances, Param is IIT’s answer for eco-friendly rides in Indian metros.
The prototype may look simple, but Gupta and his team spent close to Rs 2.5 lakh out of their own pockets before they went out looking for sponsors. Gupta says, “The materials used are difficult to get and we had to be very precise in adding any part to Param. This aside, we had conceptualised Param for the Human Powered Vehicle Challenge hosted by Montana State University this year in the US. So, we had to figure out means to get the prototype and ourselves to the competition.” Param soon found three corporate sponsors: GAIL, ONGC and LIC. “We have to date spent Rs 8.5 lakh on developing a workable unit of Param, and a prototype,” says Gupta.
Having secured an eighth-position finish in Montana, Gupta recalls how Param developed snags before every stage of competition. “There were three levels of participation — endurance, sprint and design. Before every event, we had either a broken part or some technical holdup that required instant fixing. But we managed.”
The team is now all charged up to develop a two-wheeled Param. “It’s all in the planning stage right now, but we have our eye on designing and developing a two-wheeled, human-powered vehicle that can hit higher speeds than Param,” says Gupta.
And that’s not all. The five key originators of the project intend to turn entrepreneur after college and are keen to commercialise Param. “We have done estimate studies on the viability of Param and we have found that if we can produce 100 units of Param, then the cost will come down to Rs 70,000 per unit.”
