Inviting applications for The Clock Tower Restoration Team.

We are now looking for more students to join us.

An overview of our work:

• You will be a part of a ‘By BITSians for BITS-Pilani’ initiatives that are a unique feature of our university. Regular contact with the alumni is a given.
• You will have access to the machinery at the top of the tower, complete with its decades of history and mechanisms dating back to the years before BITS was even founded. Not to mention official access to the highest point in Pilani. 🙂
• The team believes in a certain level of freedom for its members to explore the clock, and work out their own ideas towards the restoration process. There is so much scope to do things up there!
• There is a lot of scope to choose a SOP/COP/DOP project on a sub-section of task. In fact there are even opportunities to write a technical paper if you have the mind to identify unique aspects that might be of interest to the outside world.
• A commitment of approximately 8-10 hours per week on average is expected. It will be relaxed during mid-sems and compres but, we’ll have to compensate for that before and after by working a bit extra.
• A lot of documentation has been established in the last two years of work, but a lot more shall always need to be made.
• As a team, we report to the Director of the Pilani Campus and the Chief of the Estate Management Unit. We have their support as well as their confidence.
• As with other student groups, we follow the SU guidelines that do not allow monetary compensation for student activities, but  meeting refreshments are often sponsored by the team alumni. 🙂

Skills required:

Profiles

Our work can be divided into four major profiles, although, by the end, most of us are proficient to some extent in all domains:

1. Analyst/Statistician 

To deal with and make sense of the data which will be logged in by electronics team. Will deal with problems like free-wheeling patterns and synchronization issues. 

2. Acoustics and DSP experts

Here, you will be assigned the job of bell tuning which requires some audio capture, signal processing and an ear for musical pitch (you’ll be working with a mechanical expert, reshaping and testing the timbre of bells). A background of programming with application of some mathematics would be beneficial for this profile. If you think you’re an audiophile and you hear more than your fellow mortals, this might just be the perfect job for you.

3. Electronics Expert

 An important aspect of the restoration is ensuring accuracy of the clock / pendulum and automation (possibly synchronizing the clock to atomic clocks). Specifically, you will be required to prototype circuits using micro-controllers and help the team with measurements and fault diagnosis (such as free wheeling and gear slippage). Experience with interfacing sensors with micro-controllers will be helpful.

4. Mechanical Design Expert

Work under this profile involves major task being undertaken atop the tower, i.e. restoring and maintenance of the clock machinery.This includes speed calculations on gear trains,fabricating new components in the workshop or sourcing them from outside,modelling on CAD,improving accuracy of the clock, among others.Mechanical experts gets a chance to play around with the clock machinery (to a certain extent obviously :-p).A deep understanding of the clock mechanism,and familiarity with the working of it’s various components is most important.Other skills,such as designing,or workshop skills,though not a prerequisite,will be helpful if possessed by you already.