IIT-B gears up for Aakaar

True to its belief that one never learns unless one has experience, IIT-B’s civil engineering department is back with its annual cultural fest Aakaar. Spanning across two days, the fest will witness a plethora of competitions, workshops, events and lectures. With a reach of over 300 colleges across India, the festival is all set to witness a footfall of over fifteen thousand students.  

Akshay Kumar, the media manager of the fest, sheds light on the purpose of the festival. “IIT-B has many well-equipped labs and this fest gives students from colleges across India an opportunity to use these labs for their innovations, making models and competing with each other.  The main purpose of the fest is to promote cross-cultural miscellany and provide a joint platform for students to interact with each other,” says the third-year civil engineering student.

The fest has lined up a few competitions where students from over 120 colleges will be participating. An interesting one of the lot is Bridge-it where students are expected to create a bridge using Popsicle sticks! Akshay explains, “The objective is to design a hydraulic bridge using Popsicle sticks, syringes and fevicol as glue without utilising any strengthening covering. The bridge should open to a maximum angle and sustain the greatest conceivable load without failure.”

The line-up of events will give students a chance to experience the theory that they study in the confines of their classroom. “In these competitions we willgive participating teams a problem statement and they will have to devise ways to solve it. We have noticed over the years that though we study a lot of components in theory, we don’t actually get to practise them. Through this fest we will get to see the practical aspects of these theories,” Akshay asserts.

Not only will the students have to build a bridge using sticks, they will have to compete and construct a building, which is earthquake resistant. “IIT is known for it’s unique use of technology and with this competition the objective is to build a two-storey structure that can withstand maximum earthquake acceleration and shows minimum inter-storey drift. The building, which will incorporate advanced earthquake resistant techniques will be the winner.”