Engineering students develop electric go-kart, eye title in national championship

Team Black Hawk is now fully focussed on the premier Go Kart Design Challenge

For the 40 engineering students of Mar Athanasius College of Engineering, Kothamangalam, the journey behind designing and developing an electric go-kart has been no less challenging and exciting than go-karting itself.

They formed the Team Black Hawk for the project in 2020, but the pandemic disrupted their plans. The senior students who had the technical know-how for the project and were to handhold the juniors in the team had to leave the campus before they could do so. It left the beginners learning their rope in mechanical and electrical engineering with a big challenge.

“We had to acquire the requisite skills before getting into the project. The pandemic meant that most of our discussions and even designing happened online,” recollects Renjan Jose Paul, leader of Team Black Hawk and a sixth-semester mechanical engineering student.

Their first offline session took place last November just a month ahead of the Indian Kart Racing in Noida for which they had registered. After a fortnight-long brainstorming, the kart was put together in just over a week.

All those efforts didn’t go waste as the electric go-kart developed by Team Black Hawk won recognition for the best innovation and best business plan in the event organised by the Indian Society of Innovative Engineers.

The imported high-performing motor from China and the in-house developed Li-ion battery are the major USP of the kart weighing 150kg and with a top speed of 80km. The expertise extended by the startup, Hound Electric, helped the team to fine-tune the technical specs of the kart.

Team Black Hawk is now fully focussed on the premier Go Kart Design Challenge (GKDC) formerly known as the National Go Kart Championship organised by the Indian Society of New Era Engineering scheduled to be held in August.