Development of a Tinkering and Innovation Lab at IIT(ISM)

December 28, 2019 0 comments ISMAANA Admin Categories Patrika Q4 2019

Introduction

To foster a high level of creativity and innovation among its students IIT (ISM) has undertaken the development of a Tinkering and Innovation Lab at the campus. A small step in raising the ranking of our Alma Mater as one of the top ten colleges in India.

Objective

To provide an innovative workspace for students to experiment, learn and transform their ideas into real-time engineering projects leading eventually to products, services, and patents.

Background

Leading engineering institutes all over the world starting from MIT’s Fabrication Laboratory (fab lab), Harvard’s Innovation Laboratory(I-lab), and many of the IIT’s have similar innovation labs. It has been felt for many years that IIT (ISM) needed a similar lab at the campus to provide hands-on experience to students to work on new and creative ideas that could ultimately lead to new products and services.

Project Development

After a year of proposal development that included a visit to other innovation labs, IIT (ISM) developed a detailed proposal to build a world-class facility at the campus.

The lab will be located in one of the floors in the newly constructed GRIHA Compliant building inside the institute. The approx. floor space of the proposed Centre will be about 10,000 sq. feet. The building along with all the facilities and equipment shall be shared by all the students of the Institute.

Some of the major facilities and equipment that the lab would provide are 3D Printers, 3D Scanners, CNC Lathes, sheet metal cutting, welding and carpentry tools, CO2 Laser Acrylic cutter, and soldering and woodworking stations.

Other electronic and computer equipment includes GPU workstations, Electronics/robotics workstations, IoT (Internet of things) workstations, multilayer PCB printers, and laser workstation.

In short, this lab will have all the necessary equipment to build a prototype of any innovation. Work on equipment acquisition has already begun.

Project Cost and funding:

Cost estimate of the project is slightly above US $1.2 million. Mr. Naresh Vashisht (PE’67) President Omimex Resources, Fort Worth TX and ISMAANA member has generously committed to provide the required funds for the lab. The lab shall be named “Naresh Vashisht Centre for Tinkering & Innovation”.