Infrastructure
An overview of notable buildings at IIT-K.
Flight Laboratory, IIT Kanpur
Flight Laboratory is located at the airstrip inside IIT Kanpur and is used by its Aerospace Engineering department. It was introduced, in May 2013 as a helicopter service from campus to Lucknow airport making IIT Kanpur the first academic institution ever to start an exclusive air service between two major industrial towns. Recently, a business model by the name of 'Pawan Hans-Connect IIT' has been planned by Pawan Hans Pvt. Ltd. in this regard. Under this model, they will provide air service to the campus residents and visitors. This will provide easy access to academicians, foreign faculties, professionals, MNCs, to visit the campus in-person to promote knowledge and resource sharing. IIT Kanpur received collaborative technical assistance from a consortium of nine leading US universities when it was being set up. Everyone wants to reach the sky and with the help of this unique and amazing facility at IITK, the gliders club provides a temporary solution for those who dream of flying. The club organises joy rides for the students and also the campus residents. Besides this they also have arrangements of flying photography.
P.K. Kelkar Library
P K Kelkar Library of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IITK) is an academic library with a collection of more than 3,00,000 volumes and subscriptions to more than 1000 periodicals. It is one of the best libraries in the nation housed in three-storey building with the total 6973 sq. m. floor area. The Abstracting and Indexing periodicals, Microform and CD-ROM databases, technical reports, Standards and thesis are important part of this collection. Each year, on an average 4500 books and journal volumes are added to the collection. P.K. Kelkar Library, IIT Kanpur is housed with all modern amenities, and is situated in a magnificent three-story building covering an area of 5730 square meters. The library remains open, for 358 days of the year, from 8 a.m. to 12 midnight on all working days; 9 a.m. to 12 midnight on Saturdays; 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Sundays and gazetted holidays and for 24 hours during the examinations every semester. It caters information to support the teaching and research to the students and faculty members of the institute. It is well equipped and air conditioned having high bandwidth computer network enabled with WIFI and VPN for accessing Library E-Resources round the clock from anywhere. Library is fully automated with high end servers and more than 50 computers for in-house operations with trained manpower.
OAT - Open Air Theatre
IIT Kanpur provides rooms for all the clubs of Students’ Gymkhana in its Student Activity Centre (SAC) which is the hub of all the extracurricular activities of students. It also houses Open Air Theatre (OAT) with a seating capacity of over 1400 people which is used in almost every inter-hall competition like Galaxy, Takneek etc. With the help of its large projector screen and a great sound system, it serves as a means of joy and fun for students by screening various movies both bollywood as well as anime along with FIFA World Cup matches and many more in a regular time period. A large number of students along with their friends come and enjoy the luxury of watching their favourite movie with each other under the roof of open sky. In the night, it also serves as a wonderful place where people can have a peaceful heart to heart talk while watching the beautiful star-lit sky. And to add to more fun, there is also a food court where food is available 22.5 hours of the day. It has shops vending snacks, rolls, dosas etc. Many birthday parties are held here. One of the inside walls of OAT serves as Rock Climbing wall where students are taught under supervision of a well trained instructor. The climbing wall has 3 sections of varying grades each of height 11.4 meters. The first two sections, easy and medium, are of 2 meters and the difficult section is of 2.85 meters making total span of the wall 6.85 meters.
Swimming Pool
IIT Kanpur boasts of an Olympic-size 8-lane Swimming pool. The 50 meter long and 20 meters wide pool is located in the southern part of the campus. The shallow end of the pool has depth starting from 3.5 feet to 5 feet while the depth in deep end goes till 20 feet. There are many diving boards on the deep end side of the pool which are 3m, 5m, 7.5m and 10m high. The swimming pool premise is floodlit for evening and dawn slots. The water is filtered daily using the two filtering plants present at the swimming pool premises. The pool is open for almost seven months every year, being closed from the months of November to March due to the winter season.
Observatory for Amateur Astronomical Research, Airstrip
The Astronomy Club Observatory houses a 14 inch Celestron telescope with the following specifications: Type: Celestron CGEM DX 1400 HD Aperture: 14 inches Weight: approx. 80 kg Mount: Equatorial Housed in a retractable alt-az dome. The telescope is controlled by a computer via a software called MaximDL. The observatory is mainly used for Astrophotography and Photometry by IIT Kanpur students.
Sports Facilities
IIT Kanpur is not just about academics but also has world class sports facilities. It offers a wide range of sports and recreational facilities. It has two cricket fields, a 400 metres track, an Olympic sized swimming pool, separate floodlit football and hockey fields, floodlit basketball courts (2 synthetic, 1 cemented), volleyball and tennis (six synthetic) courts, indoor basketball and badminton stadiums, indoor arenas for weightlifting and squash, a skating rink, a taekwondo arena, table tennis rooms, a yoga room, two well equipped gymnasiums and the list goes on and on. The friendly but keen competition in the various sports prepares the students to face the challenges they encounter in the future.
Hostel Facilities
IIT Kanpur offers the most spacious hostels and largest rooms for the students along with 22 hours of eating facilities available in the campus ranging from some well known food chains to hostel canteens which are well-stocked and offer anyone a let out after a stressful day. Every hostel has a basketball court, few badminton courts, a volleyball court, table tennis room, a television room, a computer room, a reading room for newspapers, magazines, journals, etc, and a hall office to handle hostel affairs. The basketball and volleyball courts in the hostels are floodlit, enabling students to play even at night as the day is more or less jam packed with other activities. The halls of residences were built keeping in mind that they were to house the brightest. These weren't just the buildings that were laid brick by brick but, were supposed to be the homes of the students away from their home. They were meant to be witnesses to life long friendships, to be onlookers for ingenious ideas and to be the secure spot for the tired student to rest and re-energise for the upcoming days. All halls from I to XIII have been named 'Halls of Residences' precisely with this motive in mind and are not just hostels for students. They provide 24*7 electricity, clean sanitation facilities and good quality food for the nourishment of its beloved residents. Long after one graduates, he/she fondly recollects the memories spent in these rooms which are a treasure for them. Each hall is fully managed by the students elected by the inmates representing and executing different activities of the hostel with the help of Wardens which helps every resident in making his place of living as his/her dreamworld by getting his/her ideas implemented in the hall with the help of the fellow residents.