Sky’s not the limit for COEP students

The crowd was filled with people cheering and clapping for the students of the College of Engineering Pune (COEP) after Vinod Tawde, the Minister of Higher and Technical Education, declared to fund an additional amount of Rs 50 lakh for their second project. He also assured the institute that he would discuss the proposal of COEP to seek the status of a Deemed university with the Chief Minister.

“I congratulate the students, faculty and the parents for the glory they have brought to their institute, state and country. My department is morekeen on encouraging research and development activities in the universities and colleges across the state,” said the minister.

For the satellite see the light of day, it took the effort of around 176 students who worked relentlessly with guidance from ISRO experts.  The students were felicitated by other eminent guests including BJP MLA Vijay Kale, Dr B B Ahuja, Director and Professor at CoEP, Dr Rajendra Hiremath and Vikas Patil, both of whom are members of the Board of Governors at COEP.

There was also a short presentation by Dhaval Waghulde, one of the three students who went to Sriharikota for the launch of the satellite. “We have successfully completed the Pico satellite with the help from all the students from all the departments. We started in 2008 and the plan got approved by the college in 2009. By 2013, we signed an MoU with ISRO and we had just two years to complete the project. So far, all the parameters are functional and we are waiting for the satellite to stabilise,” Waghulde explained.

The satellite was launched on June 22 at 9:25 am by ISRO. It weighs less than a kg and is a 10 cm by 10 cm by 10 cm cube. It’s mission life is for a year.The satellite got its name, Swayam, which means self in Sanskrit since the students made the entire satellite on their own.

 

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