Pune: A plethora of talent was display in the annual SAE India Western Section Project Competition this year as Progressive Education Society's Modern College of Engineering (MCOE) played host. MCOE had the privelege of hosting the competition for the second consecutive year.

The event began with the felicitation of the guests of honour- Mr. Partha Sarthi from BEHR India, Mr. Sachin Wagh from Tata Motors, Dr. Paranjape, Principal of Tilak Maharashtra University and Dr. Tillu from Indira Institutes, who had graced the occasion with their presence. That was followed by speeches from the signatories and a few prayer-songs from the S.E. students. Soon the competition was underway as the participants showcased their technical skills in the form of a project and paper presentations. The competition heated up in the post-lunch segment with each team raising the bar higher as a result of which the judges, too, were challenged to find loopholes in the presentations.

Despite the quality of each project, there could only be one winner. The top honours were bagged by the team of Jignesh Shah, Parag Mankar, Prasad Hegde and Kiran Waghchaure from PVG. They also received a trophy and a cash-prize of Rs.7000 for their project on the Spherical Robot which truly epitomised innovation. Second place and a cash-prize of Rs.5000 was shared by Pranav Patil and Sachin Paygude from AISSMSCOE and Rounak Khairat and Sanket Kolhe from VIT. Third place and a cash-prize of Rs.3000 went to Swapnil Kasar, Pranav Kulkarni and Aditya Dharane from JSPMCOE.

The event was concluded with a vote of thanks from the SAE Student Chairman for PES's MCOE, Mr. Pushkar Agashe, followed by the Pasayadan. Hats off to the students who organised the entire event and for making it a grand success.

- Chinmay Tipre,
Student Correspondent.