Education – Page 72 – Take off with Natarajan

Message for the Day…” Follow the Righteous Way of Life to Reach the Road of Self Realisation…”

October 8, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Sathya Sai Baba

People everywhere are degrading themselves from their status as children of eternity (amrita-putra) to that of children of futility (anrita-putra)! Holding nectar in their grasp, they are drinking the poison of sensual pleasure. Neglecting the joy of contemplation of the fundamental divine reality of the universe, they are entangling themselves in the external trappings of this objective world of appearances. This immortal dharma (amrita-dharma) is described in the Upanishads, and since the Gita is the kernel of the Upanishads, the same is emphasized in the Gita too. The Gita teaches Arjuna to develop certain qualities that help the practice of the Atma Dharma (the righteousness that springs from the True Self). These are delineated in verses 13 to 20 of Chapter 12. The dharmic (righteous) way of life is like the very breath; it is the road to self-realization. Those who walk along it are dear to the Lord.

Prague Astronomical Clock: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know…This Historical Clock Turns 605 Today…9 Oct 2015…

October 8, 2015October 8, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

She doesn’t look a day over 600, but on October 9, the Prague astronomical clock celebrates its 605th birthday. To celebrate this joyous occasion, Google has put up a very nice Google Doodle.The company writes in the page about the drawing that “Despite over a half a millennium of wear and a brush with disaster in WWII, much of its original machinery remains intact, making it the oldest functioning clock of its kind in the world.” The company adds, “Today’s Doodle honors a magnificent achievement in medieval engineering and a cultural landmark whose symbolism, design, and intermittent repairs are a remarkable catalogue of Europe’s past.”

Here’s what you need to know:

1. Legend Says That the City of Prague Suffers if the Clock Is Neglected

According to Prague City Line, the entire city will suffer if the 605-year-old clock is ever neglected and falls into disrepair. The clock is located in the city’s famed Old Town Square. One of the clock’s symbols, a skeleton, which represents death, will nod its head when it deems that the device has been neglected and that it’s time for Prague to suffer.

2. The Clock Was Severely Damaged by the Nazis During the Prague Uprising

As the Allies cruised to victory in the final days of World War II in 1945, the Nazis began sabotaging their equipment as well the historical buildings of Prague. As a result, the clock didn’t function until 1948 when it was repaired.

3. You Can View the Inside of the Clock on Google Streetview

Thanks to Google, you don’t have to bring yourself all the way to Prague’s Old Town (but you should, it’s beautiful). You can view the inner workings of the clock on Google Street View.Obviously, you can also check out the outside area, too, and remind yourself why you should go to Prague.

4. One of the Clock’s Designers Was a Catholic Priest & a Scientist

The clock was first constructed in 1410 by two men, Mikulas of Kadan, and Catholic priest and scientist Jan Sindel. He was the astronomer in the duo with Mikulas being the more functional clockmaker. The influence of religion can be observed around the clock, with the 12 apostles, the skeleton representing death, as well as a miser carrying a bag of gold representing the deadly sin of greed.

5. The Clock Is Older Than Joan of Arc

The clock was functioning for two years before Joan of Arc was born. It’s nearly a century older than William Shakespeare. Not only that, but it’s fully 310 years older than the United States of America.

Source…. Paul Farrell

Here’s what it’s like to live in space….

October 8, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

A $US150-billion contraption floating 270 miles above Earth is one of the most impressive achievements of humankind.

It’s called the International Space Station (ISS), and a rotating astronaut crew has occupied it since 2000. The work of those astronauts has yielded some incredible scientific insights.

Astronaut is not a profession where you get to go home at the end of the day though. One ticket from Earth to the ISS costs about $US70 million, so normally each crew lives and works on the station for a six-month shift.

Right now NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are in the middle of a year-long shift aboard the ISS. They will be the first humans to spend a consecutive year living in space.

But what is it like to actually live on the ISS?

The first step to living in space is getting there. All astronauts hitch a ride to the ISS on board a giant space shuttle that launches from Russia.

NASA

The shuttle takes astronauts all the way up to the ISS, which floats about 250 miles above the planet.

NASA

The station is a system of labs, living quarters, and control rooms, and it spans about the length of a football field. A rotating crew of six astronauts share the space.

NASA

The ISS is hurtling around the Earth at about 17,150 miles per hour. That extreme velocity puts the ISS in a constant free fall around the planet.

So everything on board experiences weightlessness, including the astronauts.

So they get around the station by floating. Which means sometimes it’s too hard to resist the temptation to strike a Superman pose.

NASA

Weightlessness causes a lot of weird problems though — the kind of problems we never experience here on Earth thanks to gravity.

NASA

For example, sweat doesn’t evaporate. Instead, it pools on astronauts’ bodies, so they are constantly toweling off sweat. You can see sweat droplets escape from this astronaut’s towel after he wipes his head.

If objects escape inside the ISS, they can float away, get lodged in equipment, and cause malfunctions.

For example, even small tasks like clipping your nails become a problem. Astronauts clip them near a vent, so that tiny pieces of nail don’t end up floating all over the station.

RAW Embed

Water is also difficult to manage. It likes to stick together in a big blob.

So washing and showering is a challenge. Astronauts squirt a few lines of water on their skin and hair and then use no-rinse soap and shampoo to clean themselves.

The station only gets resupplied every few months, so astronauts have to be mindful of their supplies. Luckily, over 90% of the water on board gets recycled and reused.

That includes everything from dirty wash water, water from astronauts’ breath, and yes, even urine is recycled. It’s all sent through this high-tech water filter on board.

YouTube/Canadian Space Agency

The water is perfectly safe to drink after it’s run through the filter (it’s actually cleaner than the water we drink on Earth), but many astronauts say they try not to think about it too much when they refill their water pouches.

YouTube/Canadian Space Agency

Getting back to that urine thing, ‘How do you go to the bathroom?’ is one of the most common questions astronauts get.

YouTube/ESA

If you’re going number one, it gets sucked into this tube through the yellow nozzle.

YouTube/ESA

Things are little more complicated when you need to go number two. There’s a tiny seat, a container for the waste, and a suction pump.

YouTube/ESA

Once you do your business and suction it away, you have to change out the ‘poop bag’ for the next person.

YouTube/ESA

Still, all the complications that come from weightlessness don’t get in the way of what astronauts are really there for. They spend most of their time working on various research projects and repairing the station.

NASA

Sometimes that even involves venturing out into the dangerous vacuum of space. Trips outside the station are called ‘spacewalks,’ and they take a lot of preparation and safety training.

NASA

One wrong move and an astronaut could just float off into the vacuum of space (like George Clooney in ‘Gravity’). They also have to watch for leaks in the spacesuits that protect them from the bitterly cold temperatures and radiation in space.

NASA

When they aren’t working, astronauts still have to stick to a pretty tight schedule. They have mandatory workouts so they don’t lose too much muscle mass in the weightless environment. (Since they don’t have to fight gravity, they get a lot less exercise while moving around.)

You can easily lift hundreds of pounds in a weightless environment, so astronauts have a cleverly designed machine for weight lifting.

After a good work out, you gonna eat. Space meals are stored in dehydrated packets. Once you add a little water, dinner is served.

And the menu isn’t half bad. Here’s an astronaut enjoying a milkshake.

NASA

After dinner it’s time for bed. The middle section of the station is where most of the crew sleeps. Labs and work spaces make up the rest of the structure, and the giant yellow panels collect sunlight to help power everything.

YouTube/Canadian Space Agency

Each astronaut has their own tiny room that includes a work space and a sleeping bag strapped to the wall. You can see on the screens that it appears astronaut Scott Kelly is chatting on Facebook.

NASA

Sleeping in space is hard to get used to since you don’t feel the sensation of lying down. Astronauts zip themselves into a sleeping bag every night so they don’t float around in their sleep.

And they have to keep careful track of their sleep schedule since days don’t pass the same on the ISS as they do on Earth. The station is whizzing around the planet so quickly that the crew sees about 16 sunrises and sunsets during a 24-hour Earth day.

NASA

When it’s time to return to Earth, a shuttle flies up to the station to pick up the astronauts. Then they parachute back down to Earth in a landing pod.

NASA

Astronauts are a little wobbly on their feet when they first land, but it doesn’t take long to readjust to a weighted environment.

NASA

Living on the ISS is no picnic, but it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. Most astronauts say they wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.

NASA

Source…… KELLY DICKERSON….. http://www.businessinsider,com.au

Natarajan

Why 5000 Books Travelled All the Way from USA to Find a Home in a Tiny Police Station in TN …

October 8, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Ever since the advent of the internet and e-books, printed books are of no value anywhere now.” So thought this US citizen who had books to give away. An ACP in Tirupur, India, disagreed. The books crossed the ocean and found a home in his police station.

Sometime in 2014, an India-born philanthropist from the US visited India, visiting Coimbatore and Tirupur in Tamil Nadu. In a light conversation with the Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Tirupur, he mentioned that he wished to donate books for a children’s library in the area. Kids in the United States of America do not read books anymore, he said. They have access to reading material through e-books, which are easily available to them on any electronic device.

“At one time, if a school child wanted to find out information about something for a project, a trip to the central library in town was an essential requirement. Notes were made, rough pictures were drawn and, once home, all this information was put out on charts or on umpteen sheets of paper, which were neatly spiral bound before being submitted in school,” says Mr. Chakravarty, the father of a college-going girl from Coimbartore, who is also a friend of the ACP of Tirupur.

Today, even in developing countries, children have access to all kinds of information on electrical devices. Just having a smart phone is enough to log onto Google from anywhere — and all the data one would want is available online.

However, in the United States and other western countries, in particular, many children have stopped borrowing books from school libraries. There are some people who feel these books may be of use to children in small towns like Tirupur in Tamil Nadu.

It was in this context that the ACP in Tirupur was made the offer of books for a library.

“As soon as this particular philanthropist went back to the US after his Indian sojourn, he transported 5,000 books to Tirupur. Such beautiful books, such a lovely world of information,” says the ACP, who does not wish to be named. “All the policemen in the North Police Station, Tirupur, were spellbound seeing so many books.”

The policemen immediately got down to sorting out the books in various categories. They numbered every one of the books and almost 2,000 of them were donated to the Rotary Club right away.

Picture books were meant for very small children, larger books for older children, children’s novels, novels for adults, reference books on various subjects, some textbooks and even encyclopedias — there were all kinds of books.

These books seemed to have been picked up from the libraries of many American schools and sent to India with the hope that children here would find better use for them. –

Once the books were sorted and numbered, the ACP began looking for a place to set up a library. Unable to find a suitable location, he rearranged the furniture in the large hall in his police station and put shelves filled with books right in the middle of the room.

“Having set up the place, we contacted the principals of the local schools and told them about the library that we have here,” says the ACP. “School children have to bring with them a letter of permission from the principal of the school and we then allow them to borrow books. A register is maintained with information about the child and the books that he/she has borrowed. The borrower is allowed to keep the book for a period of fifteen days,” he adds.

“As soon as the police station opens in the morning, the library too is declared open, and it remains so until the police station closes for the day. Anyone can come and visit the library at any time on a working day,” says one of the constables at the police station.

During the day, when anyone at the police station is bored and find that they have time on their hands, they pick up a book from the library to flip through.

“Most of the constables have very limited knowledge of the English language. They may be able to understand a little, and may even be able to string a few words together to speak a sentence, but their reading and writing skills in English are virtually nil,” continues the constable.

However, flipping through books in any language, especially if they have pictures, is a real pleasure, and most people spend their spare time doing just that, he adds.

“It has been barely three months since the children have been coming here from the school nearby to borrow books,” says the ACP, “and it will take at least a year before we can evaluate how useful it is to have books donated from across the world for the benefit of our children.”

This library, at the Tirupur police station, is an experiment of sorts. If he finds that it is a success, with children gaining from the experience, the ACP proposes connecting with the philanthropist in the US again and getting him to donate some more books to establish other libraries in the state.

Source…..Aparna Menon….www.the betterindia.com

Natarajan

This tiny country just outlined a plan to completely stop using oil, coal, and gas….

October 7, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Recently, there seems to be an uptick in small nations or islands setting their sights on becoming increasingly, or completely, powered by non-fossil fuel energy sources, particularly renewables such as solar, wind and hydroelectric power.

This is welcomed news in a world that – despite recent advances in tackling climate change by the US and China – remains relatively paralyzed in its ability to make substantial changes to how it deals with climate change.

Earlier this year, Costa Rica met the entirety of its national power demand using renewable energy for 75 days straight.

Shortly afterwards, the US state of Hawaii passed legislature decreeing that, by 2045, the entire island will be powered by renewable, sustainable energy sources.

Denmark, one spectacularly windy day in July, generated 140% of the nation’s electricity demand through wind power alone, as reported by the Guardian. Remarkably, much of the excess was given to Germany, Norway and Sweden.

Sweden may have taken this to heart, because just last month they announced that they will be spending an extra $546 million (£360 million) on renewable energy and climate change action, beginning with their budget for 2016.

Stockholm

Sweden is on track for becoming a nation powered by sustainable, renewable energy sources alone by the next half-century.

The ultimate aim is as ambitious as it is honorable: They hope to become one of the world’s first nations to end its dependence on fossil fuels. Solar energy, in particular, has seen its budget increase by 800%.

Although this nationwide goal has not got its own timetable yet, the Swedish government has announced that its capital of Stockholm aims to be powered only by sustainable energy sources by 2050.

This announcement couldn’t come soon enough: The United Nations Climate Change Conference, which will be held this year in Paris, is beginning at the end of November. Sweden’s – and Denmark’s – climate change initiatives will hopefully influence the less keen attendees of the conference to begin to adapt their own countries’ energy grids.

The Ecologist reports that Sweden is also closing its nuclear power plants, although this is mainly due to their aging infrastructure. Nevertheless, no replacements are planned, with the government preparing to use only renewable energy sources. It should be pointed out that nuclear power plants are often lumped together with fossil fuel power plants as being just as harmful to the environment. However, in terms of climate change, nuclear power plants have a negligible carbon footprint more in line with renewables, as reported in Nature.

Governments often stop using nuclear power plants in response to political pressure, demonstrated by Germany’s recent move. In this case, the Fukushima crisis in Japan – caused by a once-in-a-lifetime natural disaster – prompted the German government to phase out its nuclear power plants by 2022, according to BBC News.

Germany, of course, is a country that does not suffer from tsunamis or dangerous earthquakes; there is a near-zero risk for any such crisis occurring to any nuclear power plants there.

Despite also eschewing nuclear power, Sweden is on track for becoming a nation powered by sustainable, renewable energy sources alone by the next half-century, which is a remarkable feat. Two-thirds of the country’s electricity is generated from non-fossil fuel energy sources already, mainly through hydroelectric and nuclear power generation.

It will be interesting to see how replacing their nuclear power plants with renewables will hamper or assist them on their path to becoming a fossil fuel-free nation.

Source….

Robin Andrews …www.businessinsider.com.au

Natarajan

How do the Astronauts Sleep in Space….

October 7, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

After months of intense training and a white-knuckled trip through the ozone layer at nine times the speed of a rifle bullet, you can bet that NASA astronauts need to bank some rest.

Space sailors log really long hours throughout their days on tasks that require intense concentration, which is why NASA schedules precisely 8.5 hours of sleep per 24 on deck.

How exactly does ‘nighttime’ play out in space?

Astronauts Pam Melroy, George Zamka, and European Space Agency’s Paolo Nespoli, sleep in their sleeping bags, which are secured on the middeck of the Space Shuttle Discovery while docked with the International Space Station.

The International Space Station (ISS) orbits the Earth at 17,150 miles per hour, clocking one lap around our planet every hour and a half. Doing the math, this means 16 sunsets every 24 hours — a new day every 90 minutes.

Fascinating, yes, but this unrelenting motion can create colossal jet lag and wreak havoc on an astronaut’s internal body clock.

Hence, Mission Control’s strict bedtime schedule and windows-shut policy.

(Though according to one report, snoozing astronauts still see streaks and bursts of bright color caused by high-energy cosmic rays bursting harmlessly onto their retinas.)

What time zone do they use?

To establish to a regular schedule in zero gravity, Mission Control keeps our diurnal astronauts on Greenwich Mean Time.

I’m guessing no cushy mattresses?

The crew members are provided sleep pods that look like padded broom closets. They have custom sleeping sacks fastened to a wall or the ceiling, lest they float about the cabin.

According to retired astronaut Marsha Ivins, who spent 42 days in space on five different missions, their sleeping bag has armholes that allow you to reach outside the bag to zip it up. You then settle yourself in by tightening the attached Velcro straps. If you don’t tuck your appendages into the bag, they’ll drift out in front of you.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield offers this video tour of his very own sleep sack aboard the ISS. After showing off his astro-PJs you can watch him zip up and close the doors to his pod.

Pillows?

That’s a whole other issue. Though not everyone wants or needs one, Ivins says she did, to help her neck relax. She actually attached her head to a block of foam.

“You put the back of your head on [the ‘pillow’],” she says, “and then you Velcro the front of your head to it.”

What about parasomnias? Any chance of sleepwalking?

Actually there was one reported case of … drifting.

According to a British reporter, one Russian crew member apparently preferred to do without a sleep pod or sleeping bag. His fellow crewmembers, still awake after he turned in, saw him float by — presumably in the midst of sweet dreams. They watched him “bouncing off the walls, his course set by the air currents that gently pushed and pulled him.”

Do they end up getting their hard eight?

No. As hard as they try to get comfy, most astronauts don’t get enough rest. Many are routinely sleep deficient, logging just six hours of sleep every 24 hours.

However, some astronauts speculate that these short sleep sessions may be the result of the body’s feeling less fatigued in a microgravity environment. Less fatigue may equal less sleep need.

Do they report any weird dreams?

According to dream studies conducted aboard the Russian space shuttle Mir, astronauts experience significantly diminished REM sleep in space compared to us Earthlings. They are therefore continually monitored for any and all ill effects.

“Efforts are planned to understand more fully the spaceflight environment and the role that other factors may play in reducing or promoting sleep,” said Lauren Leveton, PhD, senior research scientist in NASA’s Behavioral Health and Performance Division.

Who wakes them up when it’s ‘morning’?

During the 30-year space shuttle program, which ended in 2011, it was a NASA tradition to have wake-up calls during the shuttle missions. Each “morning” at the scheduled wake-up time, ground operations broadcast a song into the space shuttle cabin. A wide range of musical styles were played, including rock, pop, western and classical.

Each song was selected for a particular astronaut. Sometimes the astronauts requested the tune; other times their families selected a song with special meaning.

Unfortunately, the wake-up service is not available on the ISS. There, the crew must use a regular alarm clock.

Source….www.businessinsider.com.au

Natarajan

Sneezing Monkeys, Walking Fish – 211 Such Unusual Species Discovered in the Himalayas Recently ….

October 7, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has released a report that lists 211 rare and endangered animal and plant species, discovered in the Himalayan region. The report has some unusual discoveries like sneezing monkeys, blue-eyed frogs, walking fish and much more.

Did you know that there is a type of monkey which sneezes every time it rains? Or have you heard of a snake that can pass as a carefully crafted piece of jewellery? Ever seen a fish that can survive on the land for up to four days? Well, these are not just fictional characters from a comic book, but real animal species. And guess what, they are found in India!

Yes, you heard it right. According to a World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) report released on Monday, over 200 such unusual animal and plant species have been discovered in the Himalayan region in the last six years.

The report named “Hidden Himalayas: Asia’s Wonderland” was released in Bhutan and has interesting details of species found by different scientists and organisations in areas including Bhutan, north-east India, Nepal, the far north of Myanmar and the southern parts of Tibet.

The 211 new species that have been discovered include 133 plants, 39 invertebrates, 26 fish, 10 amphibians, one reptile, one bird and one mammal.

1. A snake that looks like a jewellery

A new pit viper with a unique skin design that showcases an ornate yellow, red and orange pattern has been found. At the first glance, it looks more like a carefully crafted piece of jewellery.

2. A blue eyed frog

The Bompu litter frog is a new species from Arunachal Pradesh, India, which has a striking greyish-blue iris with a vertically oriented black pupil.

3. A critically endangered monkey with an upturned nose

Called Rhinopithecus Stryker, this snub-nosed monkey is also called “Sneezing Monkey” because they often get rainwater in their upturned noses causing them to sneeze whenever it rains.

“To avoid this evolutionary inconvenience, snub-nosed monkeys spend rainy days sitting with their heads tucked between their knees,” said the report.

4. A singing bird

Called Elachura Formosa, this bird belongs to a unique family of birds which contains no other known species. The male members of this species sing their characteristic, unusually high-pitched song during breeding season.

5. A Vibrant blue Dwarf ‘Walking’ Snakehead fish

Found in West Bengal, India, this unusual fish species is air breather. If they are denied access to the surface they die from oxygen starvation. This snakehead fish is able to breathe atmospheric air and can even survive on land for up to four days

“They prefer to target their prey from below, often lunging upwards from the bottom to grab fish and other creatures,” the report said. Because of its aggressive traits and the way it attacks its prey, this fish has been named as “Fishzilla” by the National Geographic.

Apart from bringing these rare species into notice, the report also talks about the threats faced by the Himalayan region. Read the full report for more interesting discoveries and facts.

Story idea courtesy: Aparna Menon

All pics: www.wwfindia.org

Source….Shreya Pareek….www.the betterindia.com

Natarajan

6 Amazing Facts About Baripatha – Odisha’s First 100% Solar Powered Village….

October 6, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Baripatha has become the first village in Odisha to be entirely solar-powered, with an individual solar unit for every household.

After waiting for electricity for several years, lives of the residents of Baripatha, a tribal village in Odisha, changed for the better on Oct. 2, 2015. On this day, Baripatha became the first village in the state to be completely powered by solar energy.

Here are few things to know about the village and this project:

1. Baripatha is located about 25 km southwest of Bhubaneswar. The village has 61 households, and a population of about 350 people.

Picture for representation only. Photo Credit: Premasagar Rose/Flickr

2. The project cost Rs. 7 lakh and was co-funded by the solar products manufacturer, ECCO Electronics, and the power solutions provider, Jackson Group.

“We requested companies such as Nalco, Ecco Solar and Jackson Solar to help us with the solar project for the village…This model can be replicated all over Odisha to provide power to its nearly 3,900 villages,” senior IPS officer Joydeep Nayak, who is the driving force behind this initiative, told The Times of India.

Picture for representation only. Photo Credit: Flickr

3. Under this project, individual solar units with two solar home-lighting systems, which also have the facility of charging mobile phones and other devices, have been installed for each of the 61 households in the village.

This is accompanied by a central one-kilowatt unit for the entire village that will be used to power the eight street lamps along with a LED television set and TV set-top box that have been provided to the villagers and have been installed in their community centre.

Picture for representation only. Photo Credit: Flickr

4. The central solar unit has eight panels that can be folded quickly in case of cyclones and high-speed winds that are frequent in Odisha.

The unit can also operate a one-horsepower irrigation pump.

Picture for representation only. Photo Credit: Flickr

5. What makes the project in Baripatha is that in most rural solar projects, there is a central unit which supplies power to all households.

But that leads to many problems like the exposed cables being tapped by villagers. In this case, some households draw more power than their share, which in turn causes the central line to trip because of overload. Thus, to avoid such issues, individual units have been set up for each household.

Picture for representation only. Photo Credit: Flickr

6. The entire solar project is low cost, low maintenance and community owned.

The only maintenance needed now is the regular cleaning of panels and ensuring that water levels of batteries for the central unit are at the required mark. According to ECCO CEO, Vivek Bihani, the whole village was involved in the planning and execution of the project. “Village mukhia Narayan Hisa along with a local ITI diploma holder, Epil Kumar Singh, are responsible for the maintenance,” he informed.

Source: YouTube

The project was inaugurated on Friday by the chairman and managing director of National Aluminium Company Limited (NALCO), Tapan Kumar Chand. He, along with the other state officials, distributed the two lighting systems to each household.

Source…..Tanaya Singh….www.the betterindia.com

Natarajan

IISc Students Design Helicopter Which Derives Power from Its Own Blades. Bag Prestigious Award …..

October 6, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

A team of students from Indian Institute of Science bagged a coveted award at the Student Design Competition conducted by American Helicopter Society International. This is what the students had designed.

This August, four students from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, won the ‘Best New Entry – Graduate’ award at the Student Design Competition conducted annually by the American Helicopter Society International.

The challenge was to design a small helicopter that can carry packages weighing up to 10kgs and can deliver them in urban settings.

Source: Facebook

The eco-friendly aspect of the challenge was that the helicopter should function at a noise level lower than a prescribed limit, with minimal carbon footprint. Team Lakshya, of aerospace engineering department of IISc, came up with two solutions:

To deliver lighter packages: A four-blade small helicopter (a quad-rotor, looks like a drone) that derives power from the vibrations of its blades.
To deliver heavier packages: A conventional unmanned aerial vehicle

Both the vehicles partly derive power from their blades, thus reducing carbon footprint as compared to helicopters which are fully powered by fossil fuels.

The technology behind using energy from blade vibrations has been developed by the Non Linear Multifunctional Composites Analysis and Design (NMCAD) laboratory of the department of aerospace engineering in IISc. The institute is in the process of getting the technology patented. The team behind the development of this technology was crowned ultimate champion at the 4th edition of UNESCO-Airbus biennial innovation challenge, “Fly Your Ideas (FYI)” at Hamburg, Germany, in June this year.

American Helicopter Society organizes the Student Design Competition in association with other major helicopter companies, and this was the 32nd edition of the competition.

“The AHS International annual Student Design Competition challenges students to design a vertical lift aircraft that meets specified requirements, provides a practical exercise for engineering students at colleges and universities around the world and promotes student interest in vertical flight technology,” says that society’s website.

Every year, the organizers choose an open design problem and students have to submit their entries. The jury has academic and well as industry experts.

“It is indeed a proud moment and a wonderful experience to be recognised by the world’s most renowned vertical flight society,” said Rajnish Mallick, a doctoral graduate from IISc, who led Team Lakshya, to The Hindu.

Featured image for representation only. Photo Credit: Lee/Flickr

Source…. Tanaya Singh….www.thebetterindia.com

Natarajan

Message for the Day…” Time to shed your ego and greed …”

October 5, 2015Natarajan1 Comment

Sathya Sai Baba

Egoism and greed are still rampant; hatred has not abated and envy eats into the vitals of society. There is no dearth of scriptural books telling you how to be free from grief. All sacred and holy books including Gita, Bhagavata and Ramayana are available in all languages at a very low cost and most books are sold in more than thousands of copies per day; but there is nothing to indicate that they have been read and assimilated. The breath of the mouth must give an inkling of the food partaken, is it not? But the habits, the conduct, the character of the readers of these books have not undergone any change for the better. Hence each of you must examine your own mental make-up and evaluate whether you have used your discrimination and worldly knowledge to clothe yourself in detachment (vairagya),so that you do not suffer from attachment to things that will fade away.