Nautilus

The most difficult and demanding profession among all the defense forces is that of submarine personnel”, says a quote on the IMS Vikrant. On the same lines, it is a great challenge to build a capsule capable of free underwater movement. We challenge students to do the same here at VJTI.All of man’s creations have been inspired by nature. A bird’s flight led man to build an aeroplane and defy gravity. Similarly, the fish, freely moving underwater must have intrigued man for a long time. It was only in the year 1801, due to some brilliant designs by Robert Fulton, that the first ever practical ‘Submarine’ was launched into water. It was an improvement over the wooden one man capsule ‘Turtle’ built by the American David Bushnell in 1775. Its name is derived from the perennial life form ‘Nautilus’ which has lived unchanged on the sea bed for billions of years. But, submarines have undergone myriad groundbreaking and revolutionary changes over time. But man’s first dive into deep ocean, marked by ‘Nautilus’, has been the lodestar in this field.And that is exactly the name of one of the most exciting and challenging events in Technovanza08 - NAUTILUS.Here the challenge is to design and construct a laboratory size machine capable of two dimensional underwater movements. The machine will be placed at the starting point under water. It should move on the path provided without touching the floor, walls or plates and reach the destination point. The way is not that easy, you may find some barriers! If you cannot manage that, then you are in ‘deep waters’!


The pioneer in F1 racing in Mumbai, VJTI, is now venturing into underwater robotics competition. A ‘similar’ event, ‘Amphibious’, took place in Techfest07 last year in IIT Mumbai. But the similarity starts and ends with the involvement of water. While Amphibious required a floating robot, Nautilus challenges you to construct a fully submerged robot.Always striving to create something new and exciting and challenging the technical minds with newer and more demanding tasks, Technovanza08 takes the initiative to introduce this concept of underwater robotics. It requires original and off-the-track thinking and a desire to go the extra mile to achieve the goal. So don’t waste any more time and start gearing up. Put your thinking propellers in the right direction and let them take you to a new, exciting journey of underwater robotics. So get inspired and come and participate.