As project leader, I was responsible for system design, system integration and system management. In addition, I was also responsible for the aerodynamics and structural design of the project. The other eight engineers in my team took up the design of propulsion, structure and material, control and guidance, the avionics and the instrumentation of the aircraft. My design teacher Prof. Srinivasan, the then director of MIT, was our guide and was teaching us aircraft design.

Prof. Srinivasan reviewed the project in the fifth month and declared our work unsatisfactory and disappointing. He didn’t heed my complaints of difficulties in bringing together a project designed by multiple designers. I asked for two more months to complete the task, since I had to get the inputs from eight of my colleagues, without which I could not complete the system design.

Prof. Srinivasan said, ‘Look, young man, I will give you only one month. Within this time, you should complete the project and lead the team and show an integrated design, and I will review the project again. If the project is not completed in time and to the mission requirement, your scholarship will be terminated.’ This was a jolt because my scholarship was my lifeline, without which I could not continue my studies. There was no other way out but to finish the task.

My team and I worked together round the clock. We didn’t sleep for many nights, working on the drawing board, skipping our dinner. We were in the last week of the schedule, with the design almost assembled, and the drawings and documentation were being prepared. Prof. Srinivasan again visited us on a Sunday after his tennis game and spent two hours in our laboratory. He was very happy; he particularly appreciated the procedure we had followed and said that the integrated design had taken good shape. He commented, ‘I knew I was putting you under stress and asking you to meet a difficult deadline. You have done a great job with your system design’.

Through this review mechanism, Prof. Srinivasan really underscored the necessity of understanding the value of the time spent by each team member. He also made us understand that engineering education has to lead system design, system integration and system management. I personally realized that if something is at stake, the human mind gets ignited and the individual’s working capacity gets enhanced manifold.

A Star is Born

Address at the inauguration of the ‘Space Festival’ organized by Bharathiyar University in collaboration with NASA, Coimbatore

9 July 2012

I would like to talk to you about the work of a scientist that enabled us to calculate how long a star can survive. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, in his younger days, mastered mathematics and German. His uncle C. Ramasamy recalls, ‘Chandrasekhar’s performance at school, especially in mathematics, was at least three years ahead of the rest of the class. His classmates were aware of his potential and recognized that there was a genius among them.’