Page 3 - MECHNOVIT-XIX-Edition

EDITORIAL

As the city of Vellore continues to swelter under a torrid April sun, the activities within the School of Mechanical Energy
continue at the usual undiminished pace and its portals are all abuzz with activities. Amid all the intellectual fervor news has
just come in that VIT Vellore is among the 10 Best Engineering Institutes in India and the School of Mechanical Engineering has
been ranked a QS World Rank in the 201-250!

The last quarter was salubrious with spring in the air and the school has many reasons to feel proud. At the very outset, one
must mention the 3 days of the Industry-Academia Networking Conclave. The Honorable Chancellor green-flagged the conclave
with his usual motivating speech. Several big names from the industry spoke at the inauguration ceremony. This was only
possible with the untiring leadership provided by the Dean and his team of Colleagues to rein in motivated faculty,
researchers, and Industrial partners from India and the wider world. Eleven Memorandums of Understanding were signed.

SMEC student clubs are indeed one of a kind. These club activities lead to several high-end recognition for SMEC. Aditya
Abhijeet Kothari, Aditya Abhijit Kunte and Souvik Mukherjee of Team Osprey were 2 Runner Up at the AIRBUS ‘Flight
Challenge 2024’. Ramanesh S, Sudarshan G and Daksh Oli of Team Veloce, under the aegis of ASME, also held the First
position. Team Assailing Falcons were awarded the 1st Rank in the Asia Pacific region, along with an overall ranking of 11 at
the SAE AERO DESIGN EAST competition held in Paradise Field Lakeland, Florida. Abhijit Kunte, Vyshnav R, and Aaryan
Magnani from ‘Team Osprey’ held the 1st position at the ‘RANE-NSK’ ‘Design-a-Thon’ during the Industry Academia conclave.
HVACERS awarded a Runner-up award to Madhesh, K, Joshua Pradeep Promod during ‘aQuest’.

This quarter also saw three Mitacs Globalink" fully funded Summer Research Internship awardees (Dhanush Srikanth, Shivanshu
Kolluru and Ishwarya Sampath). A very noteworthy achievement was the granting of Design Patents to student patentees
Joshua Pradeep Promod and Soumen Basa. Like the last quarter, there were good student publications with faculty members.
During this quarter International Women’s Day was celebrated and as a fitting testament, Ipsita Mukherjee won 2 silver (25m
Backstroke, 50m backstroke) and 1 bronze medal (25m Backstroke) for a swimming competition during VIBRANCE24.
Yogeshwaran, B also received the Best NCC Cadet award. 14 SMEC scholars received their PhD degrees. Many congratulations
to them along with their able Guides.

There were also 14 Patents granted to SMEC Faculty and some co-patentees were B.Tech. students. This is no mean
achievement by any standard. VIT attained the distinction of crossing the 100-mark threshold so far as patents are concerned
and we are sure this would have not been possible without the SMEC patents. Hearty Congratulations to the patentees. We
are indeed proud to mention that Prof. Manikandan has been the associate Editor of the International Journal Heliyon for a
tenure of one year.

Dr. Sampath Kumar, Dr Jose along his associated colleagues arranged a training program. Indo Cool Composites Pvt. Limited
along with SMEC colleagues, Drs Babu and Rajesh organised a platform for mentoring students through internships and
initiating research collaborations. Prestigious funded agencies such as The British Council, the Ministry of Earth Sciences, GOI,
DRDO and others awarded funded projects to several SMEC faulty. Eight funded projects were sanctioned this quarter.

Four faculty received start-up venture grants for VIT’s E-Cell, and three consultancy grants were also awarded to SMEC faculty
by national and international bodies. Faculty publications increased by leaps and bounds with a staggering 28 Q1
publications with impact factors of more than five. Hearty congratulations to the authors. There were thirteen talks delivered
by renowned academics from US, UK, and EU university professors along with several national-level organised lectures,
training programs, FDPs and workshops. In the latter category, it is our pleasure to note that SMEC conducted 2 International
Workshops-a Two Day Workshop on “Additive Manufacturing for Future: AM2030" in association with Coventry University, UK,
sponsored by the British Council and a one-day workshop on" Computed Tomography Applications". During the quality week,
SMEC organised themed lectures on Quality through Five S and maintenance guidelines for design patent registrations.

Lastly, we request you to read the widely popular features such as Alumni Corner, Industry Expert Tech Chat, Voice of Stake
holders and notes from Parents. Please read Mr. Shashank Mishra’s story – ‘From an Engineer to an Entrepreneur’ -it is highly
motivating and a must-read piece.

We end this editorial with a deep sense of gratitude and appreciation for our beloved top management’s encouraging words
when we have inaugurated two spectacular labs which are world class in every respect. These are – the Ideation and Thinking
Lab and the renovated Computer aided Manufacturing Lab. So come along and dip into the pages of your much loved
MechnoVIT and we assure you that you will be surprised no ends.

MECHNOVIT NEWSLETTER
1