In a sea of first, second, and even final
year engineering students, cheers and requests for Arnav Sharma to stand up
could be heard, as the winners of Round 1 of the Boeing IIT National
Aeromodelling Competition were announced at IIT Bombay's ongoing Tech Fest.
‘You deserve to win,' came a few encouraging calls. And why not? At age 12,
Sharma's scale model pretty much ruled the sky.
“We had to give power to our planes in 20
seconds, then once they were in the air, we had to cut off the throttle and let
them glide. The more glide time, the better. There are three rounds and I've
been selected to go on to round 2, which will be held tomorrow (Saturday).
Those who win the second round will go on to nationals at IIT Delhi,” says
Sharma, who participated in three events on Friday, the other two being Full
Throttle and Skylark, the winners for which are yet to be announced. He will
also be participating in two additional events. “I've participated thrice each
at the IIT Kanpur and IIT Bombay tech fests and I always get selected for the
second round in aeromodelling and full throttle. It's a tough competition and
while my aim earlier was to participate and learn, this year I am hoping to
win,” says the Class 7 student, who has already won several tech competitions.
In Full Throttle, a competition in which
participants had to build their own IC car and race it with other racers,
Sharma was “the only boy who completed the minimum two laps in 40 seconds
without any check point (if the car stalled in the middle of the track, racers
would have to restart from the nearest checkpoint)”.
His father, who is an engineer tells us that
his son's skills are in his DNA. That and a lot of YouTubing is what works for
him. “Instead of watching Pogo and other cartoons, Arnav spends his time
watching aeromodelling YouTube videos. He started learning at a very young age,
he's got hurt many times, but we encourage him,” says Dr (Prof) Ashish Dutt
Sharma, Arnav's father.
Sharma's interest and curiosity in
aeromodelling began nearly five years ago when his father told him about some
models that his students had made. “It took me a year to build my own model.
I've been trying for three years. The first time I participated at an IIT tech
fest was when I was in Class 4; I took part in robotics. I started
participating in flying only when I was in Class 6 shares Sharma, who studies
at Neerja Modi School, in Jaipur.
Sharma started off by watching videos on
‘Flying for Beginners', which opened him to a world of transmitters, motors,
turbos, propellers, and a whole lot more, including making models of corrugated
sheets that “are used in advertisements”. While his father showed him the
ropes, it wasn't long until Sharma started creating designs based on ideas and
prototypes from the Internet, and soon after, tried to design his own models.
Sharma tries to finish his homework in school
and spends his time before and after school playing sports-table tennis,
swimming, and tennis. “He stood first in class,” adds his father. And on
Saturdays and Sundays, “when I'm free I spend time flying my aeromodels,” says
Sharma, who attends coaching classes for two hours a day, three days in a week
at Allen Career Institute, which prepares studentsfor the IIT JEE entrance
exams.
As if that's not enough, Sharma is also going
to attempt making a Guinness World Record for the largest periodic table in
January 2017, where “each element of the periodic table will measure 10ft X15
ft. And there are a total 117 elements”. Kudos to this kid!
Source: DNA-17th-December-2016
