Every year, hundreds of students entering IIT Bombay anticipate a chance to build things from scratch, tinker with machines and look for avenues to explore the much-vaunted “T of IIT”. With the Institute Technical Summer Projects, also known as ITSP, STAB (the Student’ Technical Activities Body) looks to help freshers begin doing “tech” here.
Since its inception in 2010, when just 16 teams had registered, ITSP has seen a significant improvement in participation over the years, with 121 teams registering in the latest edition. 66 out of the 121 teams managed to finish their projects satisfactorily within the allotted time slots. Although there has been a drop in the total number of completed projects as compared to the 2014 edition, the overall quality of the projects has remarkably enhanced, according to the STAB 2015 team.
ITSP this year
The 2015 version of ITSP also saw a variety of bootcamp sessions being held on crucial topics such as Servo motors, AVR, Solid works, 3D printing, Image Processing, Python and Android Development. In addition to this, teams were also provided quality guidance by mentors, both genre-wise as well as specialized topic-wise. Tinkerer’s Lab was converted into an active workstation for the teams, where they were supplied with essential equipment, software, components and technical expertise. “ITSP is where many people begin working on hands-on projects, even if they haven’t done tech before. The atmosphere during ITSP, with so many people staying in the institute, working on diverse projects, with enthusiastic seniors around to mentor, feels great. Lots of discussions, online and offline, debugging nightouts, review meets, Lamington visits – all in all, it’s a lot of learning for those interested. And the best part? The entire cost of the project is reimbursed by the institute, thereby eliminating all the cost barriers that restrict students from taking up technical projects”, says Chirag Shetty, Overall Coordinator of STAB for 2015.