Pragyan is an ISO 9001 and 20121 certified, student run organization that is hosted every year at NIT, Tiruchirapalli. It is the largest techno-management fest in India and provides one of the best platforms for students and inquisitive minds to show case their technical skills and knowledge.

Thus, to promote the growth of innovation in the student community and to encourage people to solve real world problems, Exhibitions and Sangam team host a wide range of exhibits and innovative products under one roof- Pragyan.

The Smart Drone is a drone manufactured by the Rajasekhar Aerial Photography Company and is fitted with a number of impressive features like the camera which can capture 4k resolution images and HD videos. Also, it is provided with active tracking sensors and ultrasonic sensors that permit the drone to stabilize for effective land surveying. The next exhibit is VantaBlack (Vertically Aligned Nanotube Arrays). It is the world’s darkest substance that is capable of absorbing 99.965% light, hence a very useful material in improving the performance of infrared cameras, telescope image studies and providing concentrated solar energy. Another impressive exhibit brought down was INDRO Humanoid Robot, India’s tallest robot. It is capable of 29 different independent movements and is autonomously controlled by DC/Servo motors. The specialty of this robot is that has been made by hand from the scratch-including the motors, and is a frugal innovation.

Also, Spero E-Bike was showcased at the Exhibitions. This is the world’s first crowd funded electric bike that gets charged while pedalling the bike. It reaches a maximum speed of 25km per hour in 10 seconds. It also includes features like cruise control and has 5 hub-gear systems in the electric mode. Moreover, to the delight of all photographers, an antique camera display was presented by Dr. Arun’s photography and vintage camera museum. 90 camera pieces were displayed from a Spy camera provided with a cigarette lighter using sub-miniature, Agfa flexilette – twin lens camera to Box cameras. Many other photography accessories were also put for view, like the Viewfinder, Folding bellows, handy and twin lens and instant flashes.

To support student innovation and ideation, Sangam and Ingenium is organized. While Sangam is an inter-NITT completion that allows the students to showcase their inventions and contest for funding to support their projects and product proposals, Ingenium is an inter-college competition on the same lines as Sangam.

Some of the Sangam projects that were demonstrated were the Rice Transplanter, targeted at reducing the cost and effectiveness of commercial rice transplanters. Then, Ares (Assistive Rehabilitation Exoskeleton) was created to provide rehabilitation and mechanical assistance to stroke patients and those who require it by using an exoskeleton piloted by the user’s EMG signals, machine learning to meet customer requirements. Up next on Sangam project was ASCON- a sign language interpreter, JARVIS- personalized monitoring system for human activity recognition which will help locate positions without GPS and analyse body vitals using IMU sensors according to the terrain. Also, an E-Voting system using MATLAB code and AADHAR card identity was developed.

Then, a Standing wheelchair using actuated gas spring and minimal force allows for the disabled to stand up was fabricated by the Designer’s Consortium. Iris a device was modelled to assist visually impaired by serving as a virtual personal assistant capable of accessing the Internet, reading, entertaining and relaying info. A Quadcopter with para-glider applications was created by 3D, the Aero-modelling club of NIT-Trichy. It was a combination of a quadcopter and a para-glider which flies at pilot scale and gives more flight time by saving battery. Among the other innovations was Sustainable concrete, an electronic and plastic substitute for coarse aggregates in concrete. Also, a rocker arm bike functioning on rocking motion was proposed to reduce the strain on legs.

The winners of Sangam in Circuital Branch were:  E- voting, IRIS and JARVIS securing the first, second and third places respectively. While in the non-circuital branch were Quad crofter, Mid-flight reconfiguration drone and Scrap shack securing first, second and third positions, respectively.

Finally, Ingenium previously known as Anwesh, saw a divergent set of exhibits from various parts of the country. These include engineering innovations like a COMSOL design that provided an insight into ancient cooling systems, engineered landfills that uses electromagnetic regenerative braking system and a Photo-Voltaic module shaped in a square pyramid, which was inspired by the Tanjore temple and also had a micro-pipe cooling system with no moving parts in the solar panels. A Virtual Reality Drum-Kit, reverse Karaoke machine and a smart home and traffic control system that made use of IoT were also displayed.
In Circuital category, first place was bagged by a project on a video game for the blind, developed by  Suhail hgk; M.A.M. College of engineering and 2nd place for developing a Virtual Reality Drumkit by Aravind S from IIT Madras and Siddeshwar Raghavan from PSG College of engineering. While in Non-Circuital category, first place was bagged by Efficient cost effective traffic regulation architecture by Anand, Ram Kowshik, Rengapadmanabhan, Bharati of IIITDM Kancheepuram  and second place was secured by the Square pyramid PV Module developed by Aravinda Bharathi, Balasubramanian;  Sri Venkateswara College of engineering.

This year’s edition of Exhibitions and Sangam proved that simple ideas and hard work can solve all the issues and problems we face as a society, if we join hands and embrace technology.