I am an IIT Bombay alumnus from the Energy Science Department. I rode a solar-powered electric bicycle for 7,424 km in 79 days. I started riding from IIT Bombay on 8th May 2016 and, for the next 79 days, rode across Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh to raise solar awareness. I returned to IIT Bombay on the 25th July.
“Hey man, it’s such a long time!”
“Twenty-seven years. Wow!”
“You have not changed a bit. Ditto IIT looks. And you, you are now bald and have, err, gained weight. And you! What happened to your specs? Oh, contact lenses! Hey come in…….”
In many such rendezvous of old IIT friends, the introductions are similar. We get engrossed in our lives, lose touch and then we meet years, decades, nay life time after and feel excited as if we are living those magical IIT days again.
From our first print edition, to a webzine in issue.com, to our very own e-zine which won an award but no moolah, Fundamatics has constantly morphed to ensure that it does not become the latest casualty of the unsure world that we call the publishing business.
So this new look should not come as surprise to you, dear readers.
A lot has happened in the world since we surfaced last.
Pratham, the student satellite of IIT Bombay, was conceptualised in 2008 with the aim of making the institute a center for space science and technology research. The satellite is designed to fit within a cube of 30-cm side weighing nearly 10 kg. Among the mission objectives of Pratham, empowering the students involved with the skill set required to develop a satellite through various stages of design, analysis, fabrication and testing is at the forefront.