Women power, RVCE rule at first annual Karnataka VLSI and embedded systems awards

RVCE, E&C, the winners!

It is always a pleasure to witness women power in technology! More especially, in India!! To my pleasant surprise, and am sure, of many others present, women power was aplenty at the first annual Karnataka VLSI and Embedded Systems Awards distribution ceremony held today at the RV-VLSI Design Center, Bangalore.

First, the winners! Congratulations to each one of them on their achievement!

VLSI category
Winner: Suraj H, Vinay R, Vinaya Ajjampura and Vasudev Pai M, RVCE, E&C.
Title: Design and verification of 16-bit pipelined microcontroller.

Runner-up: Deepika, Deepthi MN, Divya V Nayak, RVCE, Telecom — an all-women team!
Title: Design and verification of stand-alone DMA controller.

Embedded category
Winner: Praseed Chandriki, Prashant Bhat, Anup Reddy, Manoranjan S, RVCE, E&C.
Title: Implementtion of media transport in VoIP and performance analysis through measurement of QoS.

Runner-up: Ashwini HV, Sayak Bhowmick, Shruthi BR, Shruti S. Rao, Global Academy of Technology, E&C.
Title: DARAM driver for VoIP router.

It was announced that Mentor Graphics, along with STMicroelectronics, will be sponsoring next year’s awards.

Dignitaries at the first annual Karnataka VLSI and embedded systems awards.

This year’s contest was initiated by RV-VLSI in close association with VTU, and sponsored by Mentor Graphics. Dr. Walden C. Rhines, CEO and chairman, Mentor Graphics, graced the occassion. Dr. V.S. Acharya, the Honorable minister for Higher Education, Planning and Statistics, Government of Karnataka, who could not make it to the event owing to pressing official work, had his message read out.

Other digitaries present on the occasion included Hanns Windele, VP Mentor Graphics (Europe & India), Ian Burgess, Higher Education Program, Mentor Graphics, CV Hayagriv, Trustee, Rashtreeya Sikshana Samiti Trust, and chairman, governing council, RV-VLSI Design Center, AVS Murthy, honarary secretary, Rashtreeya Sikshana Samiti Trust, and Dr. MK Panduranga Setty, president, Rashtreeya Sikshana Samiti Trust (RSST).

RV-VLSI can tape-out multi-billion transistor chip today!
Venkatesh Prasad, CEO, RV-VLSI Design Center, said it was his interaction with a visionary like Dr. MK Panduranga Setty, and the support of the board of trustees of RSST that made it easy for him to transition out of the industry and start RV-VLSI. The vision of RV-VLSI is to create a steady stream of well trained professionals with a low TTP (time to be productive). To achieve a low TTP, it had to do things different from a traditional academic institution.

That differentiation started with the name, RV-VLSI Design Center itself, rather than RVDI. Next, the institute procured a Sun data center to meets its complex needs. Next, it gained access to foundry technology from Tower Semiconductor and EDA software from Mentor Graphics. Prasad added, ‘RV-VLSI has the infrastructure to design and tape-out a multi-billion transistor chip today.”

RVCE unveils Garuda super fuel-efficient car

Students from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, R.V. College of Engineering, Bangalore, have developed the Garuda supermileage car, which was unveiled last Saturday at the College campus by Dilip Chhabria of DC fame, an internationally renowned authority on car designs.

Armed with the aim to represent their College and India in international events such as the SAE Supermileage and the Shell Eco-Marathons, the group of enthusiastic and like-minded students — Team Leader Nishant Sarawgi, along with Kayaan, Darshan, Bharat, Jacob, Krishna, Gautham and Rakshit from the College’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, developed a shared vision to build a super fuel-efficient car.

This dream was realized with the unveiling of the Garuda RVCE supermileage car! This car is said to give an amazing mileage of about 200 km/litre and is slated to give a mindboggling 500 km/litre in due course.

After evaluating the features of the car and understanding the specific design details from the students, Chhabria expressed his great sense of confidence and appreciation of the design and technological capability of students in achieving this fantastic mileage.

Sarawgi says: “The project not only gave us a chance to implement the concepts we learned in theory, but also helped each one of us in unleashing the inner potential to innovate and find implementable solutions to practical problems. The fusion of theory and practice has proved to be invaluable in re-inforcing knowledge, while also enabling us to think out of the box. The many innovative solutions that emerged during the whole process led us to sharpen our application skills. One very core objective, which guided the process was also to help create awareness of the burning environmental issues like global warming, oil crisis and the need for green technologies and conservation of energy.”

Key features of the prototype include: HONDA GK 100 97 cc, 2 Hp air cooled engine; TAV 2 Torq_A-Verter and asymmetric CVT transmission systems; Tubular A1 6063 T6 chassis; use of glass fibre for the shell; Bontrager, 16-inch Moulton sizes recumbent wheels; Twin tie road steering system; Inteneidate freewheel design; variable jet carburetor and simple caliper cycle brakes.

The next steps, as per Bharat, a team member, is to improve the existing design and enhance the fuel efficiency to above 500 km/lit, and participate in international competitions like SAE Supermileage-USA, Shell Eco Marathon-UK, etc., next year.

Dr. S.C. Sharma, Principal, RVCE, congratulated the team for being among the first Indian teams to design and develop a super fuel-efficient vehicle. Dr. M.K. Panduranga Shetty, President of the Rashtreeya Sikshana Samithi Trust expressed his sense of pride on the achievement of the students and promised all support in such endeavours.

The team worked under the able guidance and support of Dr B. Anand, HoD, Mech. Dept. Patron, along with Dr. R.S. Kulkarni as the Faculty Advisor.

Sarawgi expressed deep gratitude to Tantra Infosolutions (Total Outsource Group), CD Adapco and Chameleon Motors, who willingly came forward to sponsor the initiative. Tantra Infosolutions provided strong engineering and financial support; CD Adapco chipped in with the critical engineering design software; and Chameleon Motors provided infrastructural support during the building of the car. Bimal Auto Agency provided logistics support and Innoversant Solutions provided strong support in project management, marketing and PR.