August 26, 2009
School of Engineering, Amritapuri
 
Engineering students at Amritapuri joined over 1,00,000 SAE members worldwide, with the launch of the society’s collegiate chapter on their campus. Over 100 years old, this Society for Automotive Engineers, has had in its ranks, such illustrious figures as Orville Wright, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. The Society is the leading organization world-wide for mobility engineering of self-propelled vehicles including automobiles, airplanes and boats.
 
Mr. Mathew Oommen, GM (Product Development) of Ford (India) was the distinguished guest at the launch. He delivered an insightful keynote address on Ford’s innovative safety techniques, covering topics such as airbags within seatbelts. He showed the audience many slow-motion videos of actual crash tests with experimental devices. Mr. Oommem also discussed career opportunities in SAE and within the automotive industry, emphasizing that there is a need for students from all branches of engineering.
 
“We are happy to note that more SAE chapters are being inaugurated at Amrita,” later stated Dean Engineering, Dr. M. P. Chandrasekharan. The first Amrita SAE chapter was started two years ago at the Coimbatore campus. Since then, students from this campus have participated in competitions organized by the society and won several laurels. Last year, they won the best display award for their innovative exhibits that included a Suitcase Car, Voith Propeller and Junkyard Load Carrier at the National Convention of SAE (India). The Amrita chapter was the youngest chapter ever to be given this award. (See News) 
In addition, the Coimbatore chapter has organized a Vintage and Sports Car Exhibition, aero-show and aero-modeling workshops and guest lectures. On October 5-6, 2009, the chapter will play host to the fourth SAE (India) Student Convention that will be organized at their campus in Coimbatore. “We expect over a 1000 students from all over India to attend,” stated Dr. S. Thirumalini, Faculty Advisor of this SAE Amrita Collegiate Chapter. “In addition, we expect broad participation from industry as well.”
 
Students from the new chapter at Amritapuri will participate as well. The new chapter also has plans for initiating other activities in a big way. “We will design and build our own entries for various SAE contests, including the Baja off-road vehicle competition, and Formula SAE, a mini single-person open-wheeled racecar,” stated Dr. Balakrishnan Shankar, Associate Dean. Coimbatore students have already made a self-designed Baja vehicle, we are happy to note that the Amritapuri students will soon follow suit. We wish the chapters all the best.