Stepping on to the fast lane? Well thats what we (Rohit & myself) did last winter when we made TDRW-HB. Never mind that strange name, because that is how we named our first dragster. We had registered for a drag racing event called Full Throttle, a part of IIT Bombay's annual technical festival, TechFest. Now this was not the first time that we had registered for some event at TechFest, but this was the first time that it seemed that we would be 'making' it!
After some initial ground work, my father contacted India's Hobby Centre at Kolkata to get some advice on making the first move. Our main problem was that we had an aero engine, which had to be somehow modified into an automobile engine. To make a long story short, our O.S. L.A. 2.5cc glow plug engine needed an enlarged heat-sink, a flywheel, a pinion, and some mechanism similar to the self-starter of a motorbike or car. Easier said than done, since the crankshaft hardly had 20mm of space to allow us to put in the flywheel and the pinion. Although a 1:1 scale computer generated diagram would made the issue perfectly clear, a moment's thought as to how to fit those two components on so small a shaft and make sure that they stayed there while rotating 3,000 times a second would give nice picture of what the problem was.
With Rohit arriving in Kolkata on the 27th of December, work began at India's Hobby Centre on the project. The initial idea was to use an electric motor to circumvent the issue of modifying the aero engine. A provisional plywood monocoque chassis mas made. However, the electric motor came with its own set of tantrums. Batteries were heavy, the gearbox (which was again meant for aero props) had to be modified so that power could be transmitted to both rear wheels, and last but not the least the capability of the motor to give adequate speed. In a scenario where straight line speed was of paramount importance, the importance of these issues could not be discounted. What resulted was an evening session of intensive soul-searching, during which my father managed to locate Mr. Tapan Dutta-- erstwhile employee of Hobby Centre and a proclaimed expert in modelling.
Mr. Dutta's entry into the scene resulted in some critical decisions being made. The power plant had to be an IC engine, and not an electric motor. What this meant was that the O.S. L.A.
had to be modified, no matter how! It was also decided that the final chassis would be made of bakelite.
After Mr. Dutta's turn, it was Mr. Mukherjee's turn to make an appearance. Actually it was a reappearance for him, since he had been a part of our previous TechFest-related project. Making the flywheel and the pinion, and fitting them on the crankshaft called for that particular set of skills in which he and his company R.M. Engineering excelled. A similar engine was borrowed from Mr. Rishi Kumar (the Punjabi fellow who owns Hobby Centre) and given to Mr. Mukherjee, while our own engine got lapped and runned-in on the bench. Meanwhile, the front axle and steering mechanism was figured out and work began on assembling it at Hobby Centre.
While the 'big' things got sorted out, some of the most interesting experiences that we had were related to taking care of the scores of seemingly minor points. During the two weeks that we spent in Kolkata on the project, the Metro became a part of our daily routine. The day would start with Rohit and me taking an auto-rickshaw to the Girish Park or the Mahatma Gandhi Road Metro station. We would then take the train to Park Street, often making a brief stopover at Chadni Chowk to hunt for some obscure item. The rest of the day would either be spent at the small Hobby Centre workshop, or shuttling between Park Street and Chadni Chowk with occasional visits to Strand Road and Netaji Subhas Road in between. Sometimes Rohit would go to Topsia to get the rear wheel assembly made in a lathe shop hardly bigger than the bathroom in an average five-star hotel suite. To top it all, my father would co-ordinate the whole schedule, and not to mention the endless stream of motivation and brain storming that he would do keep us motivated and to ensure the project was kept on track. I have lost count of the number of chicken/mutton rolls that we consumed during all these adventures. But the count would have definitely doubled if Mr. Rishi Kumar had not given us the license to have
anything in his restaurant adjoining Hobby Centre at a 50% discount!
Before I end this, I think I owe an apology to all those people whom I had promised to meet this winter in Kolkata but could not catch up with, especially Parthada, Indrada, Sarbo, Suto, Mantu, etc.. A special mention has to be made about my sister and my parents, whom I would not be meeting for the better part of next year, since they were the ones who bore the brunt of my activities the most.
