Technology is the one thing that drives the student culture and spirit at IITM. The college was founded with the belief that technology would be what drove India into the 21st century. And even now, we continue to push the boundaries of what is possible through a wide range of teams, events and societies - all determined to define the T in IIT.

We bring you a lightning-fast overview of everything tech at IITM

Ready?⚡

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Shaastra

The technical fest of IITM, conducted in the month of January. It has over 500 coordinators and 11 different verticals and boasts over 60+ events such as Aerofest, Programming, Design, Elecfest, quizzing and workshops.

Their flagship events are Envisage, Evolve (interactive events that involve sharing ideas and networking), Spotlight Talks and Shows and Exhibitions, which attract artists from all over the world.

TechSoc

A team aggregating the best of tech at IITM into a common platform & encouraging a collaborative environment for learning & tinkering.

Inter-hostel competitions ranging from drone-building to biz quiz to reverse coding keep the enthusiasm & curiosity for tech high throughout the year. Watch out for their next email to grab a chance at learning tech alongside your friends.

Centre for Innovation (CFI)

The Centre For Innovation (CFI) is a 24x7, 800+ member strong, student-run innovation lab started in 2008.

CFI serves as a space to nurture budding innovators and entrepreneurs by providing them with an entire ecosystem of mentorship and financial assistance.

Its legacy is marked by 15+ successful Start-Ups, 27 National and International Awards, 4 World Records & academic research and Intellectual Property published patents every year.

It hosts IIT Madras's 6 disruptive competition teams & 13 clubs, fueled by pure love for technology.

Competition teams

IITM is home to 6 tech competition teams - each building their legacy in some of the most prestigious technological showcase competitions in the world. They already have multiple awards under their belt but are far from stopping anytime soon.

Avishkar Hyperloop 🚅

The team was once a CFI student project but has since gone on to win the 2019 SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition (yes, they met Elon Musk :) ) as the only Asian team. Hyperloop is the newest mode of transportation, aiming to offer speeds as fast as Bangalore to Chennai (408km) in 30 minutes!

They're working on innovations such as the Hyperloop infrastructure, pod, magnetic propulsion, and levitation. Recently, a patent for the hyperloop vacuum tube design was obtained, and an MoU was signed with the Ministry of Railways to further the technology and construct India's first 500 m long vacuum tube testing facility.

Abhyuday 🚀

Rocketry enthusiasts who aim to represent IITM in the Spaceport America Cup, the world's largest intercollegiate rocketry competition.

They're researching and developing a liquid propulsion system and innovating the nose cone and fins to optimize the performance of their rocket. Apart from literally "reaching the skies and beyond", they also aspire to promote model rocketry culture in Indian universities.

Their first rocket is named 'Mockingjay'. It is classified as a suborbital-sounding rocket capable of carrying a 6 kg payload to a target altitude of 10,000 ft., using an off-the-shelf solid rocket motor. The rocket and its components will be recovered using a two-parachute recovery system.

Abhiyaan 🚗

Team Abhiyaan is a group of enthusiastic engineers working towards building intelligent and precise autonomous navigation systems.

Earlier this year, they demonstrated an autonomous pilot run of 100+ feet with institute director Dr Kamakoti riding the team's electric vehicle. Currently, the team is moving towards developing an autonomous institute shuttle.

In partnership with ExTeM (Extra-terrestrial Manufacturing), a research group at IIT Madras, they're building an Autonomous Martian Core Sampling Rover.

AgniRath ☀️

The newest competition team at CFI. They are building a completely solar energy-powered car to travel from Darwin to Adelaide, Australia, for the World Solar Challenge - a prestigious 35-year-old competition setting the world stage for solar mobility.

Anveshak 🦾

A team of about 30 students that builds an all-terrain rover every year.

Their biggest competition is the University Rover Challenge, in which teams from various countries from all over the world come together to demonstrate their rover's capabilities.

They're currently working on making the rover more autonomous and considering potential capabilities with the addition of drones.

Raftar Formula Racing 🏎️

Started in 2012, this disruptive crew rose relentlessly, building the fastest & most efficient racing cars, quickly climbing its way to India's #1 team. They are currently working on an all-electric racecar. Their legacy is littered with weld sparks flying through countless sleepless nights, adrenaline-packed highs-&-lows, and 1 AM car tests at Gajendra Circle. In short, a disciplined & passionate team fueled by - blood, sweat & gasoline.

Tech Clubs

The Centre for Innovation is home to 13 clubs across various technical verticals - each pushing the boundaries in their respective fields through innovative projects and raising awareness throughout the student body. Their efforts culminate in the CFI Open House - an annual event where every club showcases their work.

3D Printing 🍶

The club is involved in 3D printing and the development of 3D printing technologies. Last year, they developed a solution to print models of infinite length. This time, they're working on Pellet printing technologies, which show promise to reduce the cost per print by at least 5x.

It is one of the biggest projects CFI has ever made and has heavy industry demand. They are also working on ceramic 3D printers.

Aero ✈️

The club focuses on aeronautics and developing unmanned aerial vehicles.

Some of their ongoing projects are PlasmaWings (autonomous fixed-wing UAV mainly for medical supplies), GAIA (multirotor UAV with a purpose of checking the soil quality and other relevant parameters for afforestation), Communication Relay Drone (relaying data from low connectivity zones) and ConstructAR (automatic surveying and aid in planning through the use of AR).

Analytics 📑

Analytics Club is a community of like-minded people who work in the field of Data Science and Machine Learning. They tackle challenging real-world problems in diverse fields like Data Science, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing and Reinforcement Learning.

Their current projects include Text Guided Object Hallucination, AI on Edge (Efficient Visual Question Answering), Chitti (Virtual Home Assistant), Project Pingala (Speech Synthesis for Sanskrit Verse) among others.

CVI - Computer Vision & Intelligence 💻

This club explores physics-informed neural networks through deep learning and finite element methods to solve partial differential equations with highly accurate results using a fraction of the computational power.

Their current projects include DeepFake detection, Synthetic Face Data generation, Model conversion for on-device deep learning, Reinforcement learning for F1 pit stop strategizing, Multiview 3D facial generation and many others.

Electronics 💡

The Electronics Club tackles multiple projects and often teams up with professors and other clubs for their expert contributions.

They are currently working on an AR indoor tour guide through solving the calculation of GPS location indoors. They are also developing an intelligent tripod with the CVI Club, posture detection wearables, cost-effective prosthetic limbs, heads-up displays in bike helmets and a Hogwarts chess board - an automatic chess board (no brutal destruction of chess pieces, unfortunately :) ).

Envisage🏮

In 2013, Shaastra debuted Envisage, India's first and only student-organized techno-entertainment show, Envisage. The team develops new, unique initiatives every year through a technologically assisted cultural display. Some of the Envisage 10.0 projects have been invited to the Build club-IITMRP following the CFI Open house.

Horizon 🌃

Horizon Club is the Physics and Astronomy Club of IIT Madras. It is the oldest technical club in the institute.

Horizon conducts night-sky observation sessions with the student community, observatory trips and even astrophotography. They also invite students and eminent professors to conduct exciting scientific sessions - from studying the craziness of the sub-atomic particles at the quantum scale to the magnificent supernovae that shine across the galaxy.

They're currently working on Building a Cloud Chamber to detect subatomic particles, Modelling and Visualizing Physical Systems and the Analysis of Astronomical Spectral Data.

iBot 🤖

The Robotics Hub of IITM, the iBot Club, serves as a resource for tech-savvy robotics enthusiasts interested in leveraging multidisciplinary, multifunctional tools to address real-world issues.

The Artemis Railroad Crack Detection Bot, Project Handyman's Prosthetic Arm, Alfred's Robotic Personal Assistant, Samosa's Robot for Step Agriculture, and numerous more noteworthy projects were all worked on by the club. The club entered the Limca Book of Records after employing 45 robots to scrub a floor simultaneously.

iGEM ⚗️

A team with the goal of elevating India's synthetic biology scene through innovation and education.

They advanced to the semifinals of the Synbiopower pitch competition, won the best computational award at GOGEC, the sustainability track at E-Summit, and took home second place in the IIT Kanpur Bio innovate competition. They are currently developing a sugar-free and sustainable whey.

Product Design 🏹

Despite just being three years old, this team hopes to instil a culture of design thinking and user-centric product development inside the organization through Design Challenges, Meaningful Projects, Workshops, and other activities.

Their current projects in development include Compound Bow, Beach Cleaning Bot, REpower, GAIA, HUD, and NITRO.

Programming 🧑‍💻

The club significantly boosted IITM's interest in Competitive Programming and helped establish a CP culture and community here. Numerous new projects have been launched, including Weekend Programming Sessions, Summer Programming Camp sessions and contests (with international participation).

Currently, they are working on a Natural Selection Simulator, a Visualizer Library, a Codeforces Practice Tracker, and an Algorithmic Trading Platform (in partnership with the Finance Club).

Sahaay ♻️

The Sahaay team develops inventive and cost-effective technological solutions to a wide range of social concerns.

With countless NGO partnerships and projects that have won national honours, Team Sahaay has demonstrated the value of its work on numerous occasions.

The Automatic Waste Segregator and Public Toilet Seat Sanitation projects have also been featured in the Times of India's headlines.

WebOps and Blockchain 🪙

The team aims to facilitate understanding of web development and Blockchain technology through group discussion, organized events, guest speakers, and undertaking projects.

They are currently working on the Chennai Waterlogging Platform, InstiSpace, Virtual Animated Assistant, FarmApp, CV Dental, and CF Tracker. They have also created an application targeted at IIT Madras's sanitation challenges and built a voting system using the Ethereum blockchain, which was successfully used to conduct the SLC speaker election in April 2022.

In closing.....

IITM has regular events, sessions, workshops and competitions to keep you on your technological toes.

Among a community of people with diverse knowledge and talents, and a pool of innovative ideas around every corner, IITM's technological limits know no bounds.