Acknowledgement

I am grateful to my advisor Dr. G. K. Ananthsuresh for his precious guidance, who first drew my attention to the project problem. The novel idea of a kit for compliant mechanism was his brainchild. I am also thankful to G. Ramu and A. Ravikumar for working on fabrication of prototypes. My lab mates Meenakshi Sundaram, Narayan Reddy, Sudarshan Hegade gave me innumerable suggestions to make my work fruitful. All my M.E. classmates and friends at IISc supported me every moment to make ‘Life in IISc ’ worth saying so. The journey was always topsy-turvy for me, but because of friends like R. Ganesh, Darshan Pahinkar, Atul Verma, Sandeep Soni, Hari Thakur, Mallikarjuna Rao, Ashvinikumar Patil, Vishal Dixit, Abhra Chatterji it became memorable. However the list is endless. I take this opportunity to salute all the professors in my department for their valuable talks in classrooms as well as outside, who helped me to grow richer not only in knowledge but also in wisdom. I owe a lot to the institute. It is a beautiful evidence of ‘Unity in Diversity ’ of India