BIT to BIC- The journey of fabrication of a F- Car

Chapter 1:- Where It All Started

“Well our seniors have done it once. We have a wisely chosen team. We have all the materials, all the tools, the guidance and support of few of the elites in the Automobile field, it’s not going to be a problematic issue for us.”

And with this huge or I must say gigantic underestimation, TEAM THUNDERBOLT 2.0 dared to participate in the SUPRA SAEINDIA 2016.

It all began in August 2015, when SAEINDIA announced the dates for Virtual SUPRA 2016. Abinash Panda, a third year Mechanical Student from BIT Patna, who had been a member of TEAM THUNDERBOLT in SUPRA 2015, decided to once again accept the challenge to fabricate a Formula One Car. Along with his mates, he formed up a team of 24 members including batch-mates and few juniors. He had everything planned and scheduled in his mind. But things aren’t that easy my friend.

The Virtuals dates kept shifting and the enthusiasm kept on diminishing. After 5 long months, SUPRA finally announced that all the teams must directly participate in the main event with their self-designed vehicle. The main event was scheduled to be in the first week of July, “Things can’t get any better. No Virtuals, we just need to fabricate a car and send it to competition. 4 months is enough for the fabrication, 3 months of testing, and whoooooooshh! Glory Glory Hallelujah! Glory Glory Hallelujah! ” That’s what Abinash thought. He just missed one single thing. Just a small teeny tiny detail:-

“Is the team still ecstatic about SUPRA?”

And he didn’t like the answer to that.


Bulky chunky books, the indispensable studies, misunderstandings and personal issues. These factors nullified the excitement the team had towards the competition. Three of the team’s big assets dropped down and the rest of the team had no idea how difficult this task was going to be. Procurement of
Funds, Sticking to every single letter of the 150 pages long rule book, procuring the desired materials, fabricating of the best F-1 car ever was clearly no task for 4-5 people.


Let’s just give you a brief idea what this team had to design.

The challenge was to design a Formula One Vehicle that is economical and adheres to every single ink mark on the 150 pages of the Rule Book, making it one of the safest on road vehicles.

So much at stake, he panicked but never let his determination down. Gathered just 2-3 of his trusted team members and in full swing, started the fabrication. “Need funds, we will invest.” “Need someone to cut and grind, we will do.” “Need someone to do the marketing, we are always there.” “Have anyone done the simulation? No, don’t worry. That’s what we are here for”. And not exaggerating, they seriously did it.


It would be hard to believe but the 2-3 members Abinash chose, brought a lot of relief as the simulation went on smoothly. Till the mid of February, the structure was virtually ready along with the raw materials required for the fabrication of the same. Now all they needed was just Suspension, Transmission, Steering, Brakes, Electricals, Man Power and the most important factor of the modern era : “THE FUNDS”

Abinash and his trusted members had involved so deeply in the process that they had lavishly spent all their bank balance in the process. Their never had patience and ultimately it made them broke. TEAM THUNDERBOLT came to a halt as February approached its end.

Chapter-2: THE INITIAL ISSUES

 
The designing and simulation hasn’t reach the halfway mark, and Mid Semesters were knocking on the door. Abinash and his few other fellow mates too have reached their saturation level and were not capable enough to handle studies and SUPRA together. They themselves halted the work for a couple of weeks. They thought that it won’t be much of an issue resuming the work. Well, pity on them.

All the heat was completely gone as the team was tormented by the Mid Terms. There were no funds and the roll cage had to be fabricated as soon as possible. The captain and his friend invested and ordered the raw materials. Seeing the work being resumed, a couple more members joined and started fabricating the roll cage. Yes, I used the word couple and not few. Those four too were not able to cooperate among them. Well of course, wherever money comes in, cooperation goes out. More money was required and pretty soon the captain went broke. The roll cage basic structure was nearly completed but they had to wait for over a month for the funds. Again note that I used the word “basic structure” and “nearly.”

It was the time that they got cautious and handle the team, rather than handling the work. Seeing the roll cage, their confidence was at peak. And that’s when they were most efficient. But the confidence pretty soon crossed the bar.

 They were feeling stupendous and were confident enough that they would carry out every single work that’s related to the project. I am not sure whether that included sponsorship, marketing, publicity but what I am sure about, they were confident, that they are indispensable for the execution of any work.


 And that’s how issues started. Let me put up a line that would later gain its meaning.

 “Bodacious humans and audacious words always makes the condition worse”.

 You see when you fabricate a car there are some basic planning required like

1. A proper team- A team who’s every member is always ready to give their 200% to the project. Chances of getting such a team= 0%.

2. Classification of work and giving them to required department.
   2.1. Making sure that the team execute the work
   2.2. Questioning them, only if they are not able to provide the result on time
   2.3. Warning them and giving them second chance if not done.
   2.4. Looking for alternatives

3. A proper schedule- A deadline for the completion of every work.

Its very very difficult to stick to point 1 & 3. But one could and one should definitely follow point 2. Our team followed it only too, but only till 2.1.

As soon as the fellow mates (about those I have mentioned in the above para) observed that the team is unable to execute the work, they just took all the responsibility for the work. Not only this, they never missed a single chance to blame those who didn’t do their work.

“Anyone will do a work, if you will give them a chance.”
 

But no one ever got a chance. Blaming others and praising oneself made the condition worse once again and the team developed internal issues, that led to degradation of the project further. Just two months left, no funds, no progress in the work. No ecstasy among the team, I would say that few people actually forgot that they had a project going on. The team had to come together, they had to work together, otherwise it would face a major blow and a major humiliation.
 

It was time that the captain took the complete charge and that’s what he did.

Chapter 3:- Ray of hopes

The captain seeing the matter getting worse, started gathering team members and filling them up with ecstasy once again. He succeeded with some but failed miserably with others. Moreover he got upto 8 members who were ready to save the team and work together once again to put the BOLT-TRON 1.3 on track.

Sponsorship was on the way and the fabrication was on its peak too. Everything was going on smooth, the fabrication, the marketing, the sponsorship, everything. Roll cage was completed and suspension too was almost completed. Others teams were also done with their calculations and were just waiting for the fabrication to completed.
 

Seeing those 8, others 8 people joined and the team of 16 were working in full flow for the completion of the project.
 

There were finally some happiness around and the ray of hope emerged that the car will be finished just in time. But that’s not what God has planned for us.

Chapter 4:- The downfall once again

You all are aware that when things start to get smoothly, everyone starts to relax a bit. And it’s compulsory too. It gives people time to think and make the execution better. Yes our team relaxed too. Everyone praised themselves and the team for the smooth going of the work. But again the above two statements have two paradoxes.

 

Some people relaxed too much, while some praised themselves too much. And that’s how the downfall begun once again.
 

The “procrastination” begun.
 

“We have a lot of time, we would do this work later.”
 

“I have done all the major work. Just few iterations left. Anyone will do it.” 

Procrastination is not only the waste of time, it is also the loss of energy. It makes all your excitement, all your energy and all the ecstasy vanish in thin air. And that’s what happen. Those who procrastinated, never returned to complete their work. And those who returned, faced so much blames, that they never wanted to work.

 

Coming to the second point.

Would ever want to work, if you see that someone else is praising himself/herself for the work you performed?

Would you ever want to work, if you see that you are being humiliated for performing the work in not the best way, even though you gave your 1000% in the work?
 

Well many of us faced the above two things. And that’s what led to the downfall. 

Chapter 5:- The car is ready finally 

Yeah, you know the title doesn’t seem appealing. It ain’t. Because the car was merely ready. On the day of the car was scheduled to transported to Delhi, we didn’t have our engine. Unbelievable but true. It was 3 hours before the transport that we saw the engine, the team joined hands and put everything in line to finish the car in those 3 hours. The car finally ran and a sigh of relief was observed.

Reading this journey, you must be sure that the team didn’t perform well at the competition. Yes it didn’t. But we were in the top 25% of the team due to our presentations. So, I expect that we weren’t the only team facing the above mentioned issues. Anyways, the journey ended well. 

We learned a lot from this project. What we learned at BIC, could not be summed up in one chapter, it needs another book.
 

Anyways, this SUPRA journey was one of the nicest experience anyone could get. Thanks to the team members for making me a part of this awesome journey from “BIT to BIC.”

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