Aeromodelling: Let your Dreams, Take Flight

Aeromodelling can be the first step for venture into the field of UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle), which has numerous engineering applications such as video surveillance, intelligence, remote sensing etc. It is an amazing module for self articulation, which leads the person to a successful career as a Pilot, Aircraft Designer, Aircraft Maintenance Technician, Aero-Space Engineer etc.

What is Aeromodelling?

Aeromodelling involves the activities such as design, development and flying of small air vehicles. The objects such as Radio Controlled Aircraft, Ornithopters (a machine that flies by flapping its wings), paper planes, etc. are contained in the modeling. We can learn, relate the concepts of science and engineering principles. It helps to understand all the fundamental principles of Flight, how and why an aircraft flies. 

History of Aeromodelling

Aeromodelling activity was started in the nineteenth century by Dr. Thomas Young. He discovered the lifting property of cambered surface in comparison to flat surface.

Streams involved in Aeromodelling

Aeromodelling involves a lot of interdisciplinary concepts of various engineering streams such as Mechanical, Electrical, Aeronautical, Electronics, and Computer Science, but majorly it involves Aerospace/ Aeronautical engineering topics.

Types of Aero Models

There are two types of aero models: Powered Models and Unpowered Models.

Powered Models: The powered models can fly with the help of engines and propellers. Most of the flying models can be categorized into groups.

• Free flight (F/F) model aircraft fly without any method of external control from the ground.

• Control line (C/L) model aircraft use cables leading from the wing to the pilot.

• Radio-controlled aircraft contains a transmitter operated by the controller, sending signals to a receiver in the model which in turn actuates servos. Servos manipulate the model's flight controls in a similar manner to a full sized aircraft.

Propellers: Powered aero models, including electric, internal-combustion, and rubber-band powered models, generate propel by rotating an airscrew. Propeller is commonly used to generate force due to the angle of offensive blades, which forces air backwards. Due to this, the plane moves forward.

 

Unpowered models: The unpowered models are operated without any engines.  They can remain flying for a specific period of time without committed force. They can be classified as fixed-wing gliders, lighter-than-air balloons and tethered kites. Parachutes require a route, not just a vertical drop. Due to powerless gliders, flight persists through exploitation of natural wind in the surroundings. 

 

Aero Models used in Advertising

Many airlines permit their aircraft models for promotional uses. These include Delta Air Lines, Air France, British Airways, Avianca, Aeroméxico, FedEx, Polar Air Cargo, Air New Zealand, Qantas, Singapore Airlines, United Airlines, South African Airways, Finnair, American Airlines,  Lufthansa, Japan Airlines, Royal Jordanian, Korean Airlines, and Asiana Airlines, etc. 

Benefits of Aero Modeling

Aero modeling helps to improve hand and eye coordination, understand the importance of team work, learn to cope with success and failure, create 3D objects, learn to work with plans, use hand tools etc. Also it gives immense feel of Achievement, High Confidence & Self Esteem. It ignites the Right-Brain Activity and promotes better learning. It helps to improve Logical Reasoning Capabilities of the person. Youngsters can be educated to an exciting field of science that trains them to live a life full of Thrill & Excitement and to become a role model for others in their community.

 

So, Aeromodelling has a lot to offer for the technocrats with the desire to sharpen their multi-disciplinary skills and apply them. And unlike the trendy conviction, Aeromodelling is not just for faddy flyers!

 

About Author

Prof. Supriya Sawwashere is Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science Engineering  & Information Technology. She has 14 years of experience. Her areas of interest include Theory of Computations, Computer Security and Computer Graphics.

Powering India: Insight into Electrical Engineering

The power sector in India is mainly governed by the Ministry of Power. There are three major pillars of power sector; these are Generation, Transmission, and Distribution.

 

As far as generation is concerned, it is mainly divided into three sectors; these are Central Sector, State Sector, and Private Sector. 

Central Sector or Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs), involved in the generation of electricity include NHPC Ltd., NTPC Ltd. and Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL). Besides PSUs, several state-level corporations such as Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB), Jharkhand State Electricity Board (JSEB), Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) etc are involved. Other than PSUs and state level corporations, private sector enterprises also play a major role in generation, transmission and distribution. The Power Grid Corporation of India is responsible for the inter-state transmission of Electricity and the development of National Grid.

India’s power sector is one of the most diversified in the world. Sources of power generation range from Conventional sources such as Coal, Natural gas, Oil, Hydro and Nuclear power to viable Non-conventional sources such as wind, solar, and agricultural and domestic waste.  Over the past decades, energy demand has steadily increased across all sectors including agriculture, industry, commercial and residential, and is expected to continue to grow.

In order to meet the increasing demand for electricity in the country, massive addition to the installed generating capacity is required.

The total installed capacity of power stations in India stood at 368.68 Gigawatt (GW) as of January 2020.  Around 750 million people in India gained access to electricity between 2000 and 2019, reflecting strong and effective policy implementation. Increased access to affordable energy has raised the living standards of all segments of the population.   Government of India is pursuing a very ambitious deployment of renewable energy, notably solar, and has boosted energy efficiency through innovative programmes such as replacing incandescent light bulbs with LEDs (under the Ujala scheme).

The development of technology and innovation will be a key driver for India’s economic growth. The Government of India has identified power sector as a key sector of focus so as to promote sustained industrial growth.  The Government of India’s focus on attaining ‘Power for all’ has accelerated capacity addition in the country. 

Some initiatives by the Government of India to boost the Indian power sector are:

• The Union Budget 2020-21 has allocated Rs 15,875 crores to Ministry of Power and Rs 5,500 crores towards the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY).

• The Government of India has released its roadmap to achieve 175GW capacity in renewable energy by 2022, which includes 100 GW of solar power and 60 GW of wind power.

• Coal-based power generation capacity in India, which currently stands at 229.40 (As of October 2019) GW is expected to reach 330-441 GW by 2040.

• All the states and union territories of India are on board to fulfill the Government of India's vision of ensuring 24x7 affordable and quality power for all as per the Ministry of Power, Government of India

Some major investments and developments in the Indian power sector are as follows:

• In December 2019, NTPC announced investment of Rs 50,000 crores to add 10GW solar energy capacity by 2022.

• ReNew Power and Shapoorji Pallonji will invest nearly Rs 750 crores in a 150 megawatt (MW) floating solar power project in Uttar Pradesh.

 

About the Author

Dr. S. R. Vaishnav is Professor and HOD (Electrical Engineering Department), JDCOEM, Nagpur having an experience of 31 years in teaching. He is double Ph. D in Electrical Engineering as well as Business Management. His areas of interest include Control System, PID Controller and its tuning, Fuzzy Controller.

Business Simulation Games – A new tool in Management Education

Management education is all about looking beyond books. Conceptual knowledge is still vital but it is not all. The very concepts of management have been developed by observing and studying generations of successful managerial professionals so that the students of management can absorb the relevant qualities that can help them excel in their profession.

-What makes management education unique and sought after?

-What makes the management candidates command higher salaries as compared to other candidates?

The answer lies in the way management students learn. The process is highly practical oriented or experiential in nature. Most of the teaching tools adopt ‘Learning by Doing’ approach to enable the students to develop critical thinking, problem solving, creativity and innovation, leadership and team skills. One of these tools more increasingly used by many top business schools is Business Simulation Games.

What are Business Simulation Games?

Keys and Wolfe (1993) have defined a management game as a simplified simulated experimental environment that contains enough illusion of reality enabling real-world-like responses by those participating in the exercise. These games focus on simulating management or business processes and involve a series of decision-making exercises structured around a model of a business operation. The participants assume the role of managing the operation simulated in the game. They may be web-based and played online or downloadable and played offline. Now some such games are available in Apps also.

The simulation games come in two variations: single player or multi player. The single player game can be downloaded and played in desktop whereas the multi player games are played online by connecting to a central game server.

The educators can conduct business simulation exercises with the help of these games which are available almost at no cost. As most of the students have access to internet, these games can be made part of teaching many topics and skills. Some of the Massive Multi- Player Real time Online Games (MMOGs) are played by students through social media sites where they connect with other players.

Why Business Simulation Games?

 As these games expose the students to situations and challenges which they may encounter in real life, they are more engaging and effective as teaching tools.  Most of the outcomes of these games are:

• Decision making experience

• Better Learning outcomes

• Developing soft skills such as Communication Skills, Inter-Personal Skills, Negotiation skills, Team building Skills and creative thinking

• Developing product product/service knowledge, selling skills, customer service and more functional skills.

These games help rapid learning, give a practical orientation and can give the student wide exposure to many domains and aid in self discovery. There are plenty of free as well as priced business simulation games around. Here are some of the freely available games on the internet. However some of them have paid versions for academic use:

INNOV8

INNOV8 is an interactive, 3-D business simulator designed to teach the fundamentals of business process management and bridge the gap in understanding between business leaders and IT teams in an organization. It is developed by IBM and is available free of charge.

Sim Companies

The goal of the game is to create a profitable and competitive business. Each player receives a starting capital and few assets. Players' day-2-day tasks consist of managing the resource supply chain, from production to selling in retail, procuring business partners, ensuring financing, etc. 

Virtonomics:

Virtonomics is a series of multiplayer business simulation games consisting of Virtonomics Entrepreneur, Virtonomics Business War and Virtonomics Tycoon. In the Virtonomics series, there are no predefined rules to winning or losing, and the game does not end. Although users choose their own goals in the game, the most common goal is to build a successful business in a competitive society.

Stock Market Games:

There are a number of stock market simulation games offered for free by trading platforms. ‘MoneyBhai’,  ‘Wall Street Survivor ‘ , ‘HowTheMarketWorks’  ’Virtual Trading by ICICI Direct’ and more where a player gets knowledge of the functioning of stock market and also the mechanics on investing.

Author

Dr. Swarnalata Philip is head of Department of Management in JDCOEM. She has served in a nationalized bank for eighteen years and has a teaching experience of fourteen years. Her areas of interest include Corporate Finance, Equity and Derivative Market and Behavioral Finance. She is also interested in creative writing and has written many newspaper articles and poems.

Career options in Civil Engineering

Basically, Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewerage systems, pipelines, structural components of buildings, and railways etc. Anyone can think of career development in the field of civil engineering. Civil Engineering, as a degree, covers a lot of ground when it comes to understanding our surroundings and how to work with it, but, in the future, you will have to settle on a specialization and follow it.

Some of the most popular careers that wait for you after you graduate are:

1.      Construction managers

 Construction managers are the bosses of the working sites. With knowledge on the most basic things, like weather, costs, team and time management, managers have to be the eyes and ears of the person who hired them, and have to see that everything works smoothly.
 

2.     Geotechnical engineer

 Geotechnicians have to be on the lookout for everything nature-related and know how to manage waste disposal, flood control, when and where to build a dam or a bridge, and so on. And, once you get the hang of it, then, you will be the best.
 

3.     Environmental engineer

 Environmental engineers are the closest we have to superheroes, as they take care of the planet and allow us to keep living here (or simply living, which is nice). You will get to go and restore landscapes and nature from what other people ruin, you will get to explain to other people what a healthy indoor and outdoor environment is, and what to do in the future to stop wrecking our planet.

 

4.     Public Health Engineer

Controlling the water supply and sewage system, you take care of people in towns and villages, making sure the water is clean and pollution-free is what a Public Health Engineer looks after.
 

5.     Transportation Engineer

 Do you think public transportation just happens? All those subways, trams, roads, highways, and such don’t just spring from nowhere: top transportation engineers are there, taking care of us to get home on time or not wait in the rain for your bus, like the most tragic figure from literature.

 

6.     Urban planning engineer

 Urban planning might be the closest thing to playing with your childhood legos that you can get: deciding where to put a building, where a road should be, how to circle a park with a fence, how not to put a school next to a prison, and so on.
and many more.

 

About Author

Prof. Abdul Ghaffar Noor Mohammad is working as an Assistant Professor and HoD Civil Engineering Department at JDCOEM, Nagpur. He has more than 15 years of teaching experience. His areas of interest are Structural Concrete, Structural Design, Solid Mechanics, and Mechanics of Rigid Bodies etc. Apart from teaching, he is also interested in social and educational activities for 360 degree development of students.