Five final year students of Don Bosco Engineering College, Fatorda in a commendable achievement have constructed a rolling or curling bridge. This is considered to be a great leap forward in mobile bridge designs. Currently, the only bridge of such engineering is present in London where the bridge spans an inlet of the Grand Union Canal, towards the head of the Paddington Basin.
Alvan Fernandes, Samson Rebiero, Kevin Thomas, Mikhail Estibeiro and Froylan Gracias, under the guidance of Assistant Professor Chetan Gaonkar; brainstormed and worked for about a year to design the pedestrian bridge. The bridge designed by the Don Bosco students is an eco-friendly one as it uses compressed air from the surroundings unlike the Bridge in London, which uses hydraulics or liquid oil to transmit power. What makes it more eco-friendly are the pneumatic cylinders used to generate power from compressed air. This greatly reduces the amount of noise made and does not require large storage space for liquid as in the Bridge in London.
Though a lot of fine tuning in the feasibility and viability still needs to be done, the proud students have wasted no time in patenting their idea. Now the question remains, “Is the Government of Goa going to encourage such talent and make their dream a reality?” Our Government is doing a great deal to promote tourism in Goa. Taking a cue from the Bridge in London, this, if implemented, could be a huge revenue generator.
Kudos to these amazing engineers on their invention!
