With the Indian university arranging for us to have free meals in our halls, we headed down for breakfast around 8:30am. We’re not quite sure what it was, some type on naan bread with vegetable curry sauce was our best guess. Slightly different to the usual crunchy nut anyway. After noticing the lack of cutlery on hand, we realised that everyone just eats with their hands. It turns out this is true for almost all foods in fact. Far easier than mastering chopsticks at least, and the food was really tasty.

After breakfast Siddatha took us to for a tour of the workshops and labs where we met Prof. Mohanty, the project leader here at IIT. Along with the rest of the team, it’s obvious he has put a lot of effort into arranging everything for this visit. They really are great hosts!

Looking around the engineering workshop, the lack of H&S in comparison was unbelievable. It seems goggles and overalls are underrated while flip flops are the footwear of choice when welding. I think Charlie can stop complaining about his ‘arc eye’ now. Just power through!

Around midday, we got to see their car and pit area. It’s huge! Their team have half their chassis welded up and several other parts scattered around. There does seem to be a long way to go though. Plenty to get involved with then!

After lunch we headed back to the labs with the suspension team to discuss some design options. It soon became obvious how difficult it is for them to source parts over here. Even for simple nuts and bolts they have to head to Kolkata 3 hours away. Imagine the nightmare of carrying 3m steel tubes by train.

Left to our own resources for a few hours, we decided to exchange some money at the local bank. Unfortunately we came across a bull patiently waiting outside. We’ll try again tomorrow.

The Formula Student project is not part of the course over here so they can’t work much during the day. Instead they meet in the evening and work until the early hours. At 10pm we met for a team meeting where they questioned us on areas of design and manufacture for the car. With their lack of experience they really appreciated our help and took onboard a lot of our advice. With the conversation drifting to the cricket semi-final against rivals Pakistan on Wednesday, we walked back around midnight. Everyone has been so friendly making it really easy to settle in.