MECHZEST’21, A State level Online Competition for the Final and Pre-final year  Polytechnic students of Mechanical engineering and allied branches was successfully conducted in a grand way on 18^th and 19^th of June 2021, organized by the Department of Mechanical Engineering of St. Vincent Pallotti College of Engineering & Technology. As a part of this event two competitions, viz. Project Mania and TechCanvas, were conducted through Online mode. More than 150 students from various Polytechnic Institutions participated in the competitions. The various Polytechnic Institutions included Government Polytechnic Gondia, Government polytechnic Khamgaon, Government Polytechnic Achalpur, Government polytechnic Nagpur, G.H Raisoni Polytechnic Nagpur, NIT Polytechnic Nagpur and Sharad Institute Of Technology, Polytechnic, Yadrav, Ichalkaranji.

            The day started with an Inaugural program at 9:15 am, followed by a talk from the keynote speaker Dr. Surendra V. Gole, Principal, St. Vincent Pallotti College of Engineering & Technology, Nagpur. In his talk Dr. Gole shared his experience and wisdom with the students in preparation to face various “ Career Challenges” in the present scenario. After the talk students put forward their queries which were addressed by Dr. Gole to the satisfaction of the students.

Project Mania- Project is one of the academic activities that gives the student a creative room to explore one’s engineering knowledge. Total 31 teams comprising of 115 students participated in the event. All the teams exhibited their great engineering and presentation skills. They put in their tremendous hard work to showcase their project work.  The participants displayed confidence in displaying their work before the panel of jury members Dr. K. S. Dixit, Government Polytechnic Nagpur, Dr.R. G. Chaudhari, Government Polytechnic Nagpur and Prof. V.V. Kale, G.H Raisoni Institute of Engineering (Polytechnic) Nagpur.

At the end of the event finally, the projects- “Portable oxygen ventilator for Covid Pandemic” (Government Polytechnic Gondia ), “Multi Charging Electric Vehicle Using Wind Energy” (NIT Polytechnic, Nagpur) and “Fabrication of Composite Materials” (G.H Raisoni Institute of Engineering (Polytechnic. Nagpur) were declared the winners. “Regenerative Braking System” (G.H Raisoni Institute of Engineering (Polytechnic) Nagpur received the consolation prize in the contest.

The project competition was followed by a talk on “Attitude for Aptitude” delivered by Prof. Shripad V. Deo, Assitant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, SVPEC, Nagpur. In his talk, Prof. Deo discussed the importance of preparation for aptitude tests required for various examinations like Campus Recruitment, GATE, CAT and other various competitive exams.

An other talk was presented on “ Make it Big for Yourself” by Prof. Abhronil Banerjee, Assistant Professor, Department of  Mechanical Engineering, SVPCET, Nagpur. In his talk Prof. Banerjee stressed upon the preparedness of an Engineering graduate to cope up with the upcoming technologies and his animated presentation motivated students to plan their technical career in an organised way to make the efforts more effective. He also motivated students to think big and out of the box.

On the day 2, Tech Canvas- A poster making competition with a theme “ The Role of Mechanical Engineering for Sustainable Development” was the attraction of the second day of the event. In all 24 posters participated in the event. The students explored their artistic creative side clubbed with the technical know how to do justice with the theme. Students displayed  their work before the jury members Dr. Sushant Satputaley and Dr. Brijendra Bhaskar ans as well answered the queries put forward by the jury members. Poster from Government Polytechnic Gondia emerged as the winner of the competition.

Apart from the winning prizes, a certificate of participation was given to the students who have presented their work in the respective competitions.

Head of the Department Dr. Pramod B. Lanjewar as the mentor, the event was managed by Prof. Ramanuj N. Chakraborty, Event Coordinator Mechzest’21.