Bharti Vidyapeeth students build racing car for German meet

Tavaksa, a racing car, designed by the Triumphant Racers, a group of 23 engineering students from Kharghar's Bharti Vidyapeeth College will be presented at Hockenheimring, Germany in the Formula Student Germany 2013 competition.

Racing ahead: Tavaksa, the car built by the 23 engineering students, is a single seat car with a double wishbone suspension and pushrod-actuated shocks

Formula Student Germany is an international design competition where students build a formula type racecar with which they can compete against teams from all over the world. Right from the design phase on paper to the software, manufacturing and production process later, followed by the assembly, the team is working hard to turn their dreams into reality.

This is the second year that the team is participating. Sixteen engineers of the group of 23 headed towards Germany on July 24. There are in all five Indian teams participating in the contest along with 70 other teams from all over the globe. The competition will be held from July 30 until August 4, 2013, at Hockenheimring, Germany.

Nikhil Patil, the head designer of the team, said, "The team believes in making parts from scratch. Right from the designing, analysing, manufacturing and assembling, we did everything. This also helps us to advance our thinking. Our interaction last year with various engineering experts from reputed companies helped us a lot this year."

After the design the production and manufacturing phase started full-fledgedly. It took five months from September last year to January for the Triumphant racers to come up with the design. The teams seem very confident about their creation. Shararth Shetty, head of production activity who completed engineering this year, said, "The team is excited. A lot of efforts where put in by the entire team and at last we will get to see our creation on an international stage."

No ordinary car
Tavaksa is a single seat formula one car with a double wishbone suspension. It has additional special features like:

> Pushrod-actuated shocks
>u00a0Custom-made uprights, hubs, and steering system
>u00a0Student-built rack and pinion with minimum free play
>u00a0Custom-made air intake and exhaust
>u00a0500 cc royal enfeild engine.
>u00a0It can race up to 125 kmph and weighs 300 kgu00a0