Infuse a Research Culture among Faculty and Students.

• To provide an exposure to recent research development and innovation in various engineering disciplines and fix their career goals. • To motivate the budding engineers to forecast the present and future problems of the technical fields, development for social need and estimate optimal solutions. • To identify the gap and bridge the industry-institute gap. • To encourage faculty members and students to publish their research articles.

Exposure to the research trends will enable the faculty members and the students to provide creative, innovative and optimal solutions for the real world problems. For developing novel methods and out of the box solutions in societal context to the practical problems using multi disciplinary tools, a thorough understanding of the basic concepts is essential. There is a need for the institution to provide an ambience to meet such exacting expectations.

The institute management encourages all the faculty members to pursue research in their areas of specializations and publish their research articles. As the first step to provide an exposure to the recent research directions, an access is provided to the leading journals and transactions such as IEEE and ASME through digital library. Depending on the milestones achieved, the research scholars are recognized with cash awards. The idea of conducting “in- house final year projects” creates a possibility to see the results of their solution inside the campus itself. The internal competitions and Project exhibitions provide platforms for the students to develop their research-oriented thinking. Today’s problems are multi-pronged. Therefore, they need a multi- disciplinary approach to finding solution(s). To bring objectivity into the judging of such multi-disciplinary projects are evaluated by technical experts from leading industries in that line or allied line of business. The inputs and feedback received from such experts go a long way in this institute students provide industry acceptable solutions. Mechanical Engineering departments obtained “Anna University Recognized Research Centre” status based on the Facilities available in their respective PG research labs. Through these research centres, registration of academic research works, Doctoral committee meetings, Comprehensive Viva – voce and Thesis Submission are being carried out. These research centres have also paved the way for Memorandum of Understandings with the Leading industries. All these have resulted in our student teams win laurels and recognitions in various competitions that are research based and expect the students to design thinking. Majority of these prizes are cash awards.

The number of research publications in the indexed journals from our institution is many journal papers are published in reputed journals. Our Satff members have been awarded with the PhD Degrees through the AU recognized research centers of the Mechanical engineering departments. Many of the staff members are pursing the research works in part time and full time mode under the supervision of our faculty members recognized as research guides by the affiliating university. These are the irrefutable evidences for the fact that the institutions efforts at creating grass root research thinking are bearing fruit.

Being affiliated to a university, students from our institution are expected to follow the traditional instructional method of learning and the common exam centric approach under a tight academic schedule. Hence it becomes necessary that value added courses on the emerging trends and tools could be conducted only after college hours or during semester holidays. For the development of prototypes of the research ideas, an exposure and thorough knowledge of the modern tools along with the abstract knowledge is required. Those budding aspirants have to balance between the usage of modern tools and the regular academics.

Students Mentoring Scheme

• To bring out better practical skills among young Engineering students.
• To promote knowledge-based and technology-driven start-ups through mentorship, guidance, and support.
• To develop practical skills and innovative ideas among the students.
• To encourage self-employment tendencies among students.
• To develop technical and professional awareness among the students.
• To promote first generation businessmen and industrialists.
• To develop entrepreneur and managerial skills to meet out the problems in this context of the arena.

Practical learning is learning by experience. The learner observes and then carries out, controls or interacts with real-life variables. It is a well-known fact that practical skills are important for every engineering student. Practical work includes experiments in laboratories, field work, case study and project work. It is a proof of their proactivity and helps open up better opportunities for employment and further studies. Practice makes a man perfect. Practical knowledge gives a different perspective of the information through personal experience.

Young students have the enormous power of doing things with great courage. The students of the present generation are more ambitious and aspire to invent new things. It is the responsibility of education system to motivate young aspirants to be the best in the practical skills.

With a distinctive vision of providing a path for young minds to follow and develop their skills, practical learning gives a different feeling of confidence and competence in the skills and techniques for accomplishment and victory to pursue their dreams along with a sense of direction, to shape the global economy.

The practical training courses are conducted for the students to familiarize the latest softwares and technology in their respective domain. The practical training enhances to experiential learning and practical work encourages self-learning. Practical work makes student independent and increase their confidence. Students who complete engineering education often find that when they start working, they are at a loss in spite of getting very good marks in the examination. If the engineering college integrates theory with practice, students are better prepared for jobs. Practical knowledge in advance boosts their confidence. Hence there are several benefits of practical work and at the same time it must be remembered that theoretical knowledge is also important. Practical work is application of theory and practice for best results. The students develop creative and innovative ideas/methods and give solutions to the real time problems. We also offer practical courses beyond the curriculum which includes Computer Numerical Control (CNC) training, Structural Analysis and Designing Program (STAAD Pro), Hardware and Networking, Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design, design of power converters and applications for engineering students and branding strategies for management students. Although the affiliating University framed the curriculum to conduct practical classes through online due to Covid-19 situation, we conducted only through physical mode as an option given by the University.

Every year industrial visit is arranged for the students to get awareness in the modern technology, future trends, and industrial knowledge. Students explore themselves by interacting with the industrial experts and clarifying their technical doubts and gain knowledge. Engineering students from various streams prepare the projects and present the project in Expo conducted by Eminent Engineering College in the banner of Entrepreneurship Development Centre (EDC). The students are encouraged to do in-house project by utilizing the existing laboratory facilities available in the concerned departments. An unique students Bazaar is also organized in the campus every year in the name of “Prentice Bazaar” to Management students by creating an opportunity to find the market to sell their products and to sharpen their entrepreneurial skills.

The evidence of success of these practices is that the students have participated both in Project Expo and Students’ Bazaar and developed their technical skills. The outcome of conducting Project Expo enabled our students to develop innovative projects like Green vehicle (battery operated), small turbine for generating electricity from canals (Patent approved), device for identifying fake votes, etc. With the guidance of faculty members our students have submitted various project proposals to Tamil Nadu State Council for Science and Technology (TNSCST) and got sanction of funds for 4 projects and successfully completed the projects. The approved projects in the academic year 2019-2020 are ‘Remote operated trash skimmer for lake’ and ‘Design and fabrication of fume arrester using peanut shell biofilter for arc welding application’. The approved projects in the academic year 2018-2019 are “Self renovation of building cracks with biological action” and “Tree shifting and replantation mechanism”. The Injection molding equipment was designed and fabricated by our students for research purpose. Our students have participated in the ‘Chhatra Viswarkarma’ Award-2019 a State level competition organized by AICTEDelhi and shortlisted for higher levels for their work on “Advanced Aquaponics for adopting villages”.

As the exhibition is organized inside our college premises the audiences are limited and only student participants of the exhibition alone participate the program. So, the scope of the exposure for students is less. Hence, it is suggested that the exhibition and other activities need to be conducted outside the college campus, which will increase the possibilities of mass audience to visit both Project Expo and Students’ Bazaar. The students get more exposure by conducting more exhibitions with the support of private industries located in nearby region, which can enhance and motivate the students by involving this kind of expo. Students get more interactions with the mass audience and share their views and on the other side will get more innovative ideas. Also, when the project expo is conducted beyond the college campus, there may be more chance of getting attention from private industries leading to sponsorship for our program.