Step into our campus labs, and one finds more than just textbooks—we find the future under construction. The projects that were made this year showcase what happens when curiosity meets technical expertise. With this article, we see the raw effort put into the works done by members of each department, insights into the patenting process, as well as the highs and lows that the guides witnessed during this journey.
When it came to the Mechanical Engineering department, Mathew sir mentions an electric bicycle being made by one of the student teams as being a project that he found fascinating. “So they designed, they modeled, and they analyzed all the mechanisms of a bicycle, and manufactured it at a cost under 50,000,” he adds. When asked of the precedence of innovation and execution, Mathew sir comments that they go hand in hand. “You cannot have execution alone to make an innovative project. If that thing is novel or innovative, even if it is perfectly executed, if that has been done in the past and there is no contribution much for society, then there is no point in doing that project as such. So innovation and execution; I think, are complementary to each other.”
Now for the Electrical and Electronics department, we were accompanied by Hans sir, who came across a project that seemed unusually simple on the surface: “There was one project which was just a blade design.” Such a project naturally raised the question, “What’s the big deal?”, to which the students explained how “they found out that when they make a small variation in this design, they are able to extract more efficiency by reducing the weight and increasing the airflow.”
Hans sir speaks of how a frequently seen mistake is that students tend to reverse the problem-resolution cycle and find a problem for the solution they have come up with prior. In his words, “Fabricating a problem for an existing solution.”
Alen and Abraham, who are graduating this year, have been developing their startup since their second year. Their platform helps student entrepreneurs buy and sell products more easily. When asked about the process, Alen and Abraham didn’t hesitate to mention the hard work involved. “Starting something is definitely the biggest issue. There are a lot of possibilities and you have to wait and find a direction,” they said. They credited much of their growth to the support of the IEDC, the IIC, and the faculty. Alen and Abraham stress the importance of starting something and failing: “It won’t be an easy task, but you need to be ready, and prepared to put the work in.”
Giribala, a CS student who graduated this year, tells The Page about her and her team’s final-year project. The team, which consisted of Giribala, Darshan, Fatima, and Geevar, worked on a real-time, non-invasive project aimed at helping people with speech impairments communicate well. Giribala explained that the whole process, much like most, started off with bouncing ideas off AI chatbots.
The original idea was then altered to help those suffering from speech impairments due to muscle disorders or ailments. Combining both hardware and software components, the team prioritized accessibility and ease of use. “I feel this could be life-changing for some people,” she says, expressing her desire to expand and perfect this project.
Giribala credits much of her growth to experiences beyond her final-year project. Navigating the patent process taught her valuable lessons in documentation and collaboration, while her confidence in problem-solving grew significantly compared to her first year. “In first year, I was very clueless,” she admitted, adding that seeing juniors struggle now reminds her of how far she has come.
Beyond academics, she says that she’ll truly miss the “do or die” mode that the physically intensive sessions the Civil, Mechanical, ECE, and EEE labs fostered, where shared struggles and minor injuries brought the class closer together. Describing her college journey as “mind-blowing and eye-opening,” she hopes her project will one day make a real difference in people’s lives.
When thinking about a CSE mini-project, we anticipate a software-centric concept. But the CSE Beta students Diya Jothish, Gayathri Binoj, and Maria Elsha Thomas defied the general notion and opted for a completely new direction. The mini-project titled “Nonlinear Dynamics in Neural Networks” attempts to overcome the problem of static brain analysis through fMRI data and tries to visualize and distinguish between healthy brains and those affected by Parkinson’s disease through dynamic brain analysis.
Biology not being their forte, it proved very hard to comprehend all the data which needed to be studied for the successful completion of this mini-project. The team successfully completed the project and encourages students not to shy away from interdisciplinary topics, as they can often lead to the most rewarding learning experiences.
One of the teams from the CSE department developed a pipeline that allows a small LLM to generate outputs without hallucinating—the common issue where AI invents answers to unanswerable questions. Geevarghese, whose role focused on LLM implementation and optimization, compared the process to tweaking video games to run on low-end computers. His work involved optimizing large software tasks so they can run efficiently using highly resource-constrained, low-powered LLMs.
S6 student Justin and his team developed an “Automated Attendance System Software” that uses a classroom camera to record attendance automatically and store it in an intelligent database accessible to teachers. Motivated by existing smart attendance technologies used in countries like China, Justin and his fellow team members worked hard to perfect their project to ensure maximum satisfaction.
The biggest challenge was refining the model to accurately recognize faces from a distance. What sets the project apart is its use of the InsightFace model combined with grid division, where the classroom is split into 16 quadrants and analyzed individually to improve accuracy and attendance tracking.
Anoop sir from the ECE department gave some insight about patents and how projects can evolve into patented work over time. He explained that design patents are generally simpler, while product patents require implementation and validation, making the process more complex.
He also noted that international patents are often processed faster than Indian patents. Encouraging future innovators, he hopes to see more projects focused on solving practical challenges in areas such as agriculture, healthcare, traffic management, and flooding on campus during the monsoon season.
Vidhya ma’am from the IT department notes that many recent works are centered around industry-relevant technologies such as AI, IoT, and transformer-based systems. One project that impressed her was C Tracker, a crowd-monitoring system for public spaces. She emphasizes that while innovative ideas are valuable, successful execution, testing, and validation are what truly define a project.
She highlights documentation as a crucial yet overlooked aspect, especially in industry environments where projects are passed on between employees. Above all, she believes students should work on projects that genuinely improve society and anticipate future needs.
The ECE Beta team behind one of the notable projects at the project expo worked on an adaptive IMM-based sensor fusion system for the localization of autonomous vehicles. The project underwent multiple revisions and major redesigns before reaching its final form. Reflecting on their experience, the team stressed the importance of thorough research and literature surveys in guiding a project’s development.
They also highlighted the need for practicality in engineering, where real-world challenges are often unpredictable. Despite setbacks, they credit pure hard work and keeping each other accountable for the project’s eventual success.
These stories of the technological developments here on our campus show us how engineering isn’t just about passing exams; it’s about solving real-world problems. The ingenious solutions formed by our student innovators are just a preview of the impact they will make tomorrow.
