While most youngsters of their age are busy figuring out what to do in life, five young men from India which includes two students of Indian Institute of Science (IIS) are taking the world by storm with their innovation. The five team member called Team Multifun have made India and their institute proud by winning this year’s Unesco-Airbus ‘Fly Your Ideas’ global student competition by inventing the world’s first airplane that is capable of generating its own power by making use of the vibration action of its wings.
Team Multifun comprise of five young Indians - Shashank, Dhamotharan, Mohit, Sathiskumar and Ajith are studying at universities in India, the Netherlands, the USA and the UK
The team mentored by Prof. Dineshkumar Harursampath, made use of piezoelectric fibres to achieve this feat. The fibres gather electrical charges from the smallest movements during a journey on a flight, thereby storing the energy generated in the plane's battery panels. Along with the Unesco-Airbus ‘Fly Your Ideas’ global student competition title, the team also won a cash prize of 30,000 Euros that came with it.
The 'Fly Your Ideas' global student competition is an event that takes place every two years and encourages young minds to invent something with ideas central to sustainable aviation. A list of themes is sent out to participating teams by the competition organisers each year and this year’s themes included energy, efficiency, affordable growth, traffic growth, passenger experience and community friendliness. Team Multifun's winning innovation was based on the efficiency theme.
“There is a natural vibration that exists in every aircraft when it flies, during which energy is generated,” said team leader Satish Kumar from Delft University of Technology in a statement given to a national daily. He further added, "At present the energy goes wasted. We intend to harvest the energy from the vibrations which will be sufficient enough to power in-flight operations like lightening and in-flight entertainment."
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