KARACHI: The Pakistan Naval Engineering College (PNEC-NUST) student teams taking part in Shell Eco Marathon Asia 2015 being held in Manila, the Philippines, from Feb 26 to March 1, unveiled their fuel-efficient vehicles here on Thursday.

The two cars — a prototype to participate in the prototype category and an urban concept vehicle to participate in the urban concept category — have carbon fibre bodies to make them lighter and fuel efficient.

“We are extremely hopeful of bringing more laurels to our country and college this time,” said Syeda Yusra Shah, one of the six female team members, handling communications.

Last year, the PNEC-NUST team bagged the first-ever prize for Pakistan in the event, in communications.

Pakistan started participating in the marathon, an annual affair in 2009, when it was being held in Berlin, Germany. At the time Pakistan was the first South Asian country participating in it. But no Pakistani student team had succeeded in winning anything significant until last year. The highest rank received by a Pakistani team so far is fourth in the prototype category.

This year 14 teams have the privilege to represent Pakistan in SEM-Asia.

These include PNEC-NUST, COMSATS Institute of IT, NFC Instit­ute of Engineering and Fertiliser Rese­arch, Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology, Wah Engineering College, National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Air University.

“Initially, there were 50 to 70 hopefuls from whom we selected 14. Today we are in Karachi to check these cars, tomorrow we’ll be in Islamabad and so on to see the rest. But let’s see how many of these 14, too, actually make it to the event as they may have the cars ready but they still have to raise funds in order to be able to go there,” commented Afshan Khan of Shell.

Then even if they reach the event, each car has to pass a strict technical inspection in order to be considered roadworthy and be allowed on the track. “There are about a 100 teams from some 40 countries competing this year. Many are far ahead of us in technology so even if our teams don’t win, the exposure, knowledge and experience they gain from just competing in the event is priceless,” she said.

The prototype team manager and driver Hassam Ahmed said: “Last year, we had another driver and I was just a junior student in the team. But this year as my seniors have passed out, I am promoted to driving,” he said while stepping on the weighing machine. The drivers had to be thin. For driving the prototype, the driver had to weigh 50kg or less and for urban 70kg or less.

“Carbon fibre is a banned item in Pakistan. But we were able to acquire it thanks to intervention from our faculty adviser Capt Shafiq-ur-Rehman. He got in touch with Suparco for the material,” Hassam said.

The PNEC-NUST teams comprise some 22 members.

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2015

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