A bird eye’s view !
14th of February was a very special day for all the students of STD XI , Mushtifund Aryaan Higher Secondary School as we had a one in a million opportunity of interacting with one of the Senior most Professors from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Bombay, Professor Rajkumar Pant. The Director of our Institute formally introduced him to all of us and warmly welcomed him and described him as a great teacher, mentor and a dear friend.
It was a privilege to meet Prof. Pant, who is an Aerospace Engineer himself, an alumnus of IIT Madras and who has his Ph.D. from the famed Cranfield Institute in the U.K. Starting his talk with something that everyone is intrigued about – Drones, Prof Pant gave us an insight on its applications and utility in various fields, the obvious one being Surveillance, Military, Medicine, Agriculture and even for a Pizza delivery and not forgetting to mention, playing pranks!!
In hindsight, he mentioned about the several problems involved in using Drones such as Privacy could be one of the major issues, air safety, weapons, collateral damage and the importance of strict guidelines to be followed, while operating the drones.
Speaking of the area of interest his current batch students are working on, Prof. Pant spoke about how Morphing takes inspiration from Biology, especially birds. He rightly pointed out that despite all our technological advancements, even the best aerospace engineers cannot accomplish a task that birds can do naturally! Morphing has applications such as creating multi role aircraft with improved efficiency and stealth , while reducing drag and vibrations.
However, all this is easier said than done as Prof. Pant continuously reminded us of the three enemies of Aerospace engineers cost, complexity and weight. He outlined the upcoming avenues of research, such as smart materials, shape memory alloys and acoustic morphing. Prof Pant himself has published several research papers which he has presented at International conferences in this field.
The students were very intrigued and excited to learn more about the prestigious IIT Bombay Institute and the life of a student there! Porf Pant showed the students some videos of the Tech fest which happens there, Asia’s Largest Science Festival and we also got to see some of the CubeSats ( Satellites which can fit in the palm of the hand !!) and drones such as the Rakshak ( to scout enemy territories).
The most awaited Question and Answer Session which was coordinated entirely by our Director of the Institute, Mr. Vyankatesh Prabhudesai. The students enthusiastically asked their queries and Prof Pant attended to them with ease … He concluded the interaction by speaking about the importance to get into a good college and nothing like the IITs , and also how these two years of hard work in STD XI & XII can truly change the way we perceive the world.
Prof Pant left us inspired, motivated and high on energy fuelling in us a desire to work harder than ever before in order to accomplish our goals. We thank our dearest VPD Sir for taking the effort to invite such distinguished personalities like Prof. Pant to interact with us up close and personal and further motivate us !
– Prepared by Gaurav Awasthi, Student of STD XI, MAHSS.