Pragyan archive 2014 by Shri Mithran

Archive 2014

CONTENT

INtroduction

1 Introduction 5 Events 22 Interviews -I 29 Infotainment 35 Out reach 37 Photo spread 40 Interviews- II

P r a g y a n

Q u a l i t y

A S s u r a n c e

T e a m

50 Guest Lectures 53 PSR 54 Cross fire 57 Workshops 61 Sangam 64 Interview - III 74 Exbhitions 77 Credits

Pragyan Archive is an initiative by the Pragyan Quality Assurance team which provides you with a brief insight about events, highlights and about the people who made it happen. Reports on all the events, workshops, highlights, out reach events and personal interviews of the back bones of Pragyan would hopefully give you the nostalgic feeling about the magnum opus techfest. Let’s Celebrate Technology! 123

Pragyan - the brainchild of collection of brightest minds in India. Conceived in 2005 as a platform for engineering students to showcase their skills and knowledge in fun, practical and innovative ways. In just 10 years, Pragyan has grown from just a tech fest to an ISO certified technical organization of international magnitude. Completing it’s tenth year, Pragyan’14 was a testament to a decade of celebrating technology along with the Golden Jubilee Anniversary of NIT, Trichy. Pragyan’14 proved that even a decade later, its basic ideals and values that technology is for everyone to celebrate will hold true and continue to be a guiding moral for Pragyan in the many years to come.

YET ANOTHER MILESTONE! Pragyan is known for setting trends and reaching milestones. Over the years it has embedded its trademark with the inception of unimaginable first of it’s kind ideas. This time it happens to be the patronage from UNESCO and ISO 20121 : 2012 Certification for Sustainable event management following the likes of Olympics and the Old Trafford stadium.

OVERVIEW OF PRAGYAN

C e l e b r a t i n g T e c h n o l o g y

the best of industry”. I said “but there One hot winter are symposia in all evening of 2002 in NIT departments”. “All Trichy, I was sitting people care about in with a group of friends a symposium is free lamenting on things T-shirt and two days that just don’t work without lectures”, in the campus. We they added. I asked figured one of the rather innociously biggest reasons for “So, we should have our suffering (apart a Techfest, like IIT from the pathetic Bombay?”. One wise filter coffee being man concluded “Are served) was that you crazy, the way our college doesn’t this whole system even have a decent works, it is impossible technical festival. To to even talk about our sophomore minds, doing new things. ”. this was the greatest Something ticked off sign of our mediocrity. in me at this point of About one semester time. I told myself this later, fellow is a beginning of a roommates argued, beautiful journey. “NIT Trichy students have no way to - Arpit Agarwal showcase their (Founder , Pragyan ) technical skills to

o f

The STORY BEhind Pragyan !

d e c a d e

Portrait of Prof. P.S. Manisundaram

Pragyan ‘14, the 10th edition of NIT Tiruchirapalli’s ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 20121:2012 certified annual technomanagement festival was conducted from 6th to 9th march. Before the main event Pragyan conducted outreach events. Young Minds Quiz for school students was conducted in Dubai during the month of December. This was followed by Srishti, a Mobile Controlled and Autonomous Robotics workshop that was conducted in Hyderabad and a two day data acquisition workshop was held at Cochin university of Science and Technology with support from Texas Instruments.

PRAGYAN 14 was the highlight of Pragyan -14 ( Page no : 29 ) WORKSHOPS :

INFOTAINMENT :

P r a g y a n

Q u a l i t y

A S s u r a n c e

T e a m

Infotainment is regarded as the fun element of this tech fest. Since its inception in 2008 it has always delivered a perfect mix of knowledge and entertainment through various artists and performers across the world. Dance show by the Dansuese of South India -Padmashree Shobana Chandresakar

This edition of Pragyan witnessed the highest number of workshops. From fun filled Lie Detector workshop to Big Data Analysis workshop by Microsoft , Workshops were responsible for the massive footfall of Pragyan this year. There were a total of 9 workshops conducted as a part of Pragyan14. The satellite launching workshop by ISRO was first of it’s kind in India which was the major crowd puller. Detailed reports of all the workshops of Pragyan 14 in Page : 57

EVENTS : Events are a major part of Pragyan and this year’s Pragyan had new and interesting events like Juggernaut, flagship events like Robo Wars and managerial events like Ultimate Manager. The reason for the Techno Managerial tag line was held true. With more than forty events and with cash prizes worth of 1.2 million, the participants were not let down. This Pragyan also had one of the biggest participation in events. More on Events : page 5 PSR : Pragyan Social Responsibility was envisioned as a reality in 2009 and has done some gnarly contributions for the social welfare under the

banner of Pragyan. Read about this year PSR activitites in page : 53 OUT REACH : Outreach forms the integral part of publicity for the fest. Pragyan outrach went international in the form of Dubai Young Mind’s Quiz. The second edition of Srishti , mobile making workshop was conducted in Hyderabad which had a great response from the participants. Other outreach events were

IN A NUT SHELL the Pragati, Wired and Pragyan Campus Connect. Read more : 35 INTERVIEWS :

Pragyan 14 is an outcome of the work put in by about 600 people. But marshalling such resources is no easy job. If not for the few proficient fourth years, Pragyan 14 would have never been the same. Interviews are the most anticipated part of this archive. Personal interactions with all the heads of the teams explaining what Pragyan is to them, their journey all through. Experience and emotions to put it simple. Do not miss out this section of Archive.

d e c a d e o f

Read about the eminent panelists. Page 54

When it comes to Guest Lectures, Pragyan has always provided the best. This time to enlighten the people Pragyan brought down L.Sivasankaran, Senior Manager, Nvidia; Mr.Dhanajayan, CEO Home entertainment business; Anirudh Sharma and Pragun Goyal ; V Ramgopal Rao, Prof. at the CEN and our very own Alumni T.V. Narendran; Valerie Wagoner; Jamie Hyneman. Read what they had to say . Page 50

By breaking the barriers between the past and future, Exhibitions have always provided an opportunity to see what the world has achieved and is trying to achieve through technology. SANGAM - a platform for students of NIT-T to showcase their tehnical prowess. Check out the flashy exhibtions and SANGAM projects that were showcased as a part of Pragyan 14 in page (74, 61)

T e c h n o l o g y

Pragyanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;14 presents Crossfire featuring distinguished panelists Mr. D. R. Karthikeyan ex-Director CBI, Mr. Santhosh Hegde a former justice of Supreme Court of India, Mrs. Nirmala Sitaraman national spokesperson of BJP to discuss the core issue:

EXHIBITION & SANGAM

C e l e b r a t i n g

CROSS FIRE:

GUEST LECTURES :

E V ENT CLU S T ER - ENG IN E E R I N G

CORE-E

Archive

Pragyan 2014

Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum

Junk Yard Wars

One man’s magic is another man’s Engineering Core Engineering : One of the important cluster of events in Pragyan is composed of 11 different events pertaining to all core engineering departments viz. Chemical , Mechanical, Civil and Electrical . Core - E cluster forms the crux of Pragyan. The events have embedded their own trademark over the years and has created a buzz among the engineering minds. Events like Hydro and Nittro are considered the marquee events of Core Engineering. Pragyan 14 saw the introduction of new events like Juggernaut, Circuitrix, Pragyan Design Challenge and Fly ash challenge. Innovation and engineering skills are equally tested . The models and outcomes never cease to bring out an awe. The levels of competition is always tremendous in this domain. The event reports of the Core Engineering events are covered here.

Pragyan Design Challenge “Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, simpler or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous. The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.” PDC unleashed the participant’s engineering skills, creativity and intuition into a well-defined 3D model for the design problems. In this edition of PDC, the participants were told to design sports equipment used in the Paralympics using CAD modelling software and then analyze and simulate the equipment, to check its reliability and performance.

A lever is just a rod as long as you don’t use a fulcrum. “One man`s trash is another man`s treasure”. So, is everything else just junk as long as you don’t put it to use the right way. Junkyard Wars is one of the most sought after Core Engineering event in Pragyan. This year, the event saw a total of 57 participants. The first/ qualifying round was online. A maximum of five players were allowed per team. The aim of the competition is to make a pinball arena using crude household items, springs and cardboard. The criterion for grading is : Creativity, Complexity and ‘Game working’. The total prize money for the event is Rs. 28000/-. Participants came from all over. Aravind Kumar from Tirunelveli said that the competition was innovative and easy to manage. He also praised the coordinators for their efforts. The participants were a little bit disappointed about the crowd they had received for the event.

Hover-One

“Flying down to earth is called humility, at Pragyan we call it HoverOne” Let there be no terrain unconquered,no wind unmatched,as we not just fly or sail, we hover. Hover-one revolves around designing and fabricating an air cushion vehicle controlled by a RF transmitter. Over 20 teams hd registered for the event and the prelims saw teams from Calicut,

Manipal and Trichy. This event aims at using Pragyan as a platform to promote research in the field of all terrain and multi terrain vehicles. Teams displayed various innovative designs and among them were rudder controlled crafts, relative thrust controlled crafts and crafts using thrust vectoring. It was an amazing sight to see the crafts being driven fast rather flown low.

Pragyan 2014

Know it better 1 2 3

Topographya

For the first time , Pragyan conducted an outreach event outside India in the form of Dubai Young Mind’s Quiz. Record 12,500 + participants around the globe. Pragyan gets Unesco Patronage in endorsement of exceptional activities that impact the developement of Science , Tech and Education First Organistion in India to be c ertified with ISO 20121 : 2012 for Sustainable event management.

Event Managers

Topographya was the Civil Engineer’s Treasure Hunt. The task was to locate the position of Treasure and on to discover the clues along the way. The participants were asked to locate the position of a treasure based on purely numerical data and alphabetic symbols. Using their knowledge on ‘Surveying’ they had to crack the data and reach the position of the treasure. Judging was done on the basis of number of items discovered and time taken.

Topographya was a two day event mostly based on the Surveying concepts of Civil Engineering on 8th and 9th March. It was actually a treasure hunt in which the teams had to use surveying equipments. After each task an aptitude puzzle or code had to broken to get to the next location. The winners were third year civil engineering students of our college who ran away with a cool cash prize of 10000.

HYDRO - Gopal Krishna NITTRO - Madhan Raghavan DELTA T - Vinay B JUNKYARD WARS - A.M. Anirudh TOPOGRAPHYA - Ruthwik CONTRAPTIONS- Nandini HOVER ONE - Shubham Thirani PDC - Padmeya Indurkar CIRCUITRIX - Niranjan FLY ASH CHALLENGE - Apoorva JUGGERNAUT- Sathish.K

Contraptions Contraptions is a food for brains that can make simple things complex. The theme is to throw in as many energy conversions as possible and construct a continuous routine that can complete by itself with a single trigger. The aim of the competition is to conceive the most complex way

to solve a relatively simple problem statement using everyday objects. This year, a marble, provided by the OC should pass through a spiral whose tip should meet the edge of a 10x10 square. The longer time it takes for the ball to reach the target, the better. Points are allotted by

examination of three variables â&#x20AC;&#x201C; time, complexity and creativity. The event recorded total participation of six teams. The total prize money is Rs.55000.

JUGGERNAUT AND FLY ASH CHALLENGE Juggernaut is a newborn event in Pragyan. The theme of the event is to think and rethink about the fundamentals of artillery weapons. Teams were given balloons as targets and were assigned the task of designing a mechanism to take down the targets from a predefined range. With the given constraints, teams came up with everything

they could think of starting from a crossbow to a projectile catapult. The enthusiasm in the participants took the audience back to the Da vinci era. Fly Ash Challenge aims to be a strong platform for budding engineers to exhibit their innate talents and practical viewpoints

in the process of acquiring an innovative solution for the given situation. With the boom in power generation, the amount of fly ash released per year has increased substantially. However when recycled successfully, fly ash has proven to be a triumph in sustainable development and environmental protection.

NEED FOR SPEED FORMULA 1 DIRT BLUR Nittro is an event just for those speed freaks out there. The event gave a chance to the participants to design and fabricate their own Nittro powered Remote controlled car and get down the track to race not just money and pride but for the feel….experience….thrill…. desire and passion.

NITTRO

CIRCUITRIX Some people get bogged by tronics, while others have resistors for dinner and capacitors for dessert (of course they throw in a few chips) and would swear tronics is their middle name. This event is tailor made for that rare breed of circuit-mongers. Event circuitrix has found its way back into Pragyan with an all time high participation of 138 teams. The ultimate aim of this event is to emphasize the importance of understanding and visualizing electrical circuits.

NITRO saw a total of 15 participants competing for the final prize money of Rs.80000. The atmosphere was quite tense as no participant could answer a question properly. The cars were mostly built from scratch, barring a few others. All the cars had IC engines and run on nitromethane, which gives them a very high rpm count, even though the engines are only 3.6 cc. Teams were shortlisted based on an online round and after a series of short listing, 8 teams were handpicked to the finals. They were given the task of designing a circuit for synchronous serial data reception and to measure the rpm of a given motor in a 4-bit notation. Four teams from NIT-T qualified to the finals.

”Water is the driving force of all nature.” -Leonardo da Vinci

HYDRO

The main aim of this event is to build a fully functioning, hydraulic arm that on runs via mechanical power. Application of any electronic concepts is not permitted. A total of 24 teams participated, with a team count of four members each. There were a total of two rounds. There were some early hiccups, as no proper problem statement was given.

Delta T aims to bring out ideas of innovative heat exchanger design and its application in industries. The participants are required to construct a working model of a heat exchanger to effectively transfer heat from a hot source to cold sink using a secondary heat transfer fluid without direct contact.

Battle of brightest minds PRAGYAN MAIN QUIZ

LABYRINTH

Pragyan Main Quiz also known as PMQ is the premier of Pragyan, far from classroom rote , this quiz was all about the world of science and technology. The event was started at 5PM on day 2 of Pragyan at A 2 hall. The first round went for nearly 4 hours as the there were more number of participants. The Finals was held at 11PM and the top 8 teams of round 1 were fighting for the crown. The final round of questions went beyond science and technology and questions were asked on general knowledge.

Labyrinth is one of the premier events of Pragyan. It is an online quest which tested the participants ability to think out of the box, brainstorming abilities and lateral thinking. The single stage multi level event consisted of around 50 levels. Participants can go to next level only if they clear the previous level. The event saw a massive participation all over the world as the event does not require any pre requisite knowledge on science and technology. Also the main reason for the high participation was the event was not restricted to particular age group.

BIZ QUIZ Pragyan Biz quiz is the ultimate business quiz of NIT TRICHY. The event witnessed a large participation. A 2 hall was completely occupied by business enthusiasts. The prelims was started at 5 30 in the evening. The questions were projected in a projector and participants had to answer them in a paper. The top 8 teams were selected for finals based on their scores. The finals had a variety of difficult rounds. The finalists battled out and the event was concluded at 2 AM.

BRAIN WORKS to compete against automotive extremists from around the nation en route to the podium. A part of brainworks, the auto quiz saw 75 teams with 3 participants per team. The quiz consisted of questions AUTO QUIZ from the world of automobiles, Pragyanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Auto fictional and real, Quiz is the ultimate from motorsports challenge for the car to road cars, nut in you. Whether from everyday you rebuild engines, stuff to funda for attend car shows, flip enthusiasts. The quiz through magazines was well designed or are a technical for people with all bookworm, this quiz levels of knowledge has something in of the subject. it for you. Prepare

HOW STUFF WORKS How stuff works is the royale battle between teams about the knowhow of different objects around us .The event consisted of three members per team. The event had participants from colleges such as AMRITHA, colleges around

trichy and many technical enthusiasts from NITT. The prelims had a set of 30 questions. A total of 60 teams participated in the prelims. Top 8 teamswere shortlisted based on the points scored by them. The final round started by 2 PM at the A 2 hall. The final had 6 different rounds and the finalists competed among 10

Chill pill Crime Busters The event crime busters took place on day 2 of Pragyan 14. The preliminary round was held between 10:00 and 11:00 am. A total of 280 teams from both NITT and visiting colleges comprising of 3 members each appeared for the event. The preliminary comprised of a series of logical reasoning, mathematical aptitude and general knowledge questions which tested all domains of the mind. 30 teams made it through the preliminary and were selected for the 2nd round. Each team was given 6 criminal case reports and were asked to justify and clarify queries asked in the paper. This round was speed round and tie breakers were decided based on the time taken to solve the cases. The turn up this year was the highest ever.

Zombie escapades The logical reasoning and team building event, zombie escapades took place today on Day 1 of Pragyan 14. The preliminary round of this event took place between 10 and 11 am. A total of 117 teams comprising of 3 people took part from both NITT and other visiting colleges. The teams’ basic aptitude, logical reasoning and general knowledge were tested in a series of questions which racked both memory and lateral thinking departments of the brain. Of these 117 teams 9 were selected for the final. Each team was put through 9 minute to minute tasks which tested both their practical sense and dexterity. According to the event coordinator the turn up was much greater than last year.

string thoery “Today’s science fiction is tomorrow’s reality”. STRING THEORY - an online science fiction writing contest. Within the span of a thousand words, the participants got the opportunity to craft a prose about life, the universe and everything. The only other limits set were by their imagination - and how many light years and eons it could encompass in its tentative grasp.

Events

Take one Lights-Camera-Action-Take one, these are the few words used in film fraternity from ages .Ever wanted to make something that captures everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s imagination which could be film or animation, that which shocks or entertains, that which makes people laugh and that which makes them cry, that which motivates people or shatters them with brute reality or just distracts all from their problems and voice your opinions. Take one is one of the famous events of Pragyan. It is the short film and animation film making competition of Pragyan. The contestants were given an option to choose from any one or more of the given styles of movie making and were expected to come up with original, non-documentary entries made in any of the styles. The main judging criteria are creativity in implementation, direction, editing, presentation etc. There is a wild card entry for the films posted on frappe - film society of NIT Trichy Facebook page, with most number of likes. The Selected entries were intimated through phone and website, and were screened during Pragyan in the presence of a judge. The event was judged by Mr. Dhanajayan Govind. He is the CEO of Home Entertainment Business and is involved in producing and marketing films in South Indian languages. He is one of the two founding members of Moser Baer entertainment. He was also invited to give a guest lecture on various opportunities in film industry.

Archive 2014

Pragyan cube open it o nl y g et s bi g g e r e v e r y ti m e Pragyan cube open - a rubikâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cube solving competition was held. The event was aimed at providing a platform for cube enthusiasts to try and create new records. It had 11 events. Highlight was the few moves challenge. Each participant got three cubes and one hour to find the shortest possible number of moves. Records were almost broken and participants ranged from 5 year olds to seasoned experts. Bhargav Narasimha solved the cube in 8.57 seconds - 3rd in national records; he also solved the 12 faced cube in 1min 2 sec-2nd in national record.

Eventmanagers Crime Busters - JIm

Take one - Raj siddharth

Zombie escapades - elakya PCO - Jyothirmayee

String theoery - aravind

manigma

MANIGMA

The one word which changes a man into a manager is ‘decisiveness‘

PPL Pragyan premier league which is also known as PPL is one flagship events of Pragyan. The PPL is a online cricket management event based on strategy. The first round takes place before Pragyan. In the first round players have to take part in online auctions. There were 8 matches held this year. The points will be calculated based on a virtual cricket league running in the backend. The first round saw a participation of around 400 teams. During the second round a live auction will be held. The auction was held at CSG conference hall. The auctioneer was Mr. Sagar Varma , Marketing Head of previous edition of Pragyan.

Ultimate manager The winding and twisting world of business has always amazed people with its intricate details. It’s place where only the most versatile and adapting people can survive. The ultimate manager is one among the three management events of Pragyan. The event is organised by DoMS of NIT Trichy. The event was aimed at excavating the brightest manager among the engineering crowd at Pragyan. The first round was held online. Every day one question was asked in the facebook page. The finalists were given a HR case and were asked to discuss the problem and present the marketing strategies.

Dalal street Dalal Street is a virtual stock trading game. As opposed to conventional stock picking games, Dalal Street actually allows the players to trade among themselves. Trading is facilitated by an electronic exchange running from our servers. T The event attracted participants from various colleges who were interested in stock exchange. At the start of the game, shares of few Indian companies were be offered for sale at previous day’s BSE closing price. More shares come into market later to encourage new participants and to add liquidity to the market. s.

Innovation

Innovation Event Managers : “Engineering starts in imitation and ends in innovation”

Aakriti Design it! One of the design events of Pragyan ’14, Aakriti conducted its finals on Day 2. The event involved designing a bus shelter for the NITT bus stop on account of its 50th anniversary. The participants submitted an initial plan and were then evaluated. The 10 finalists chosen presented their ideas in front of a panel of 3 judges.

Cocept Car Challenge Insight into future Concept Car Challenge held on Day 2 saw innovative, far-fetching and futuristic ideas being presented; the first round was an abstract one. Out of the 21 teams who sent in their entries 12 teams were selected for the finals. Judgement was based in design and efficiency while practicality was a problem for the future.

Concept car C h a l l e n g e Prathamesh Navikiran- Palani

Paper Presentation Surya Sanrachna - Sandeep. Aakriti - Sindu

Missed Pragyan ? No worries !

Navikiran Save the world! Navikaran held on Day 2 of Pragyan was an event that invited participants to present new methods to combat air pollution. The idea put forward had to be practically and theoretically possible. Other factors of judgement were feasibility, cost effectiveness and innovativeness. Out of the 52 teams that registered online, 11 were chosen to present their ideas in front of judges.

Paper presentation ‘Present your solutions The final round of Pragyan’s Paper Presentation was held on Day1. The event saw papers being presented in the field of Electrical ,Computer Science Mechanical, Production, Chemical and Metallurgy This event saw a participation of a total of 55 teams. The innovative ideas presented certainly sparked thought and intrigue.

Sanrachna

Make from scrap Sanrachana was an event that tested the innovative, logical and implementation of skills of the participants. Each team had to make a working model based on the problem statement with non-construction materials (drinking straws, popsicle sticks, matchsticks, pins and such) within a specified time. It was a three day event where each day a new task.

Don’t miss out the exciting video teasers, inspirations talks by alumnis, videos of infotainment shows,guest lectures. Catch the glimpse of pragyan , relive the memories in the official Youtube channel of Pragyan. http://www.youtube.com/user/ pragyannittrichy

Event Cluster - Programming

CODE IT

Hunt for the best geeks in the town

Event managers • Adaventure - Vikas Pachori • Byte code - Shriram • Digital Fortress - Vasuman • Crack the shell - Vikash • Hacker Rush - Rohan • Code Character - Vasuman • Debugging - Mohana sudarsan • Reverse coding - Arun • Pengufest - Hari

Eat, Sleep and Code - that’s pretty much the life of many youth of late. This cluster of events is made with them in mind . NIT Trichy is always known for computer science and programming and it can be emphasised with these plethora of events. Code it cluster consists of eleven events which tests coding skills in every possible way. An in depth analysis of all the events are herein this section.

There are 10 types of people in the world, one who knows binary and the rest! CRACK THE SHELL :

Hacker rush :

Crack the Shell, was an online coding event that called out to all FOSS enthusiasts. The basic objective of the event was to solve simple day to day tasks on the computer through the terminal using Shell commands. The participants could take part in this event in teams of two. The first round was selective round, a quiz consisting of objective questions. The top participants were selected for the next round. The next round, a scripting round was an eliminative one.

This is an event for the adventurous and the curious. Participants had to explore the surroundings, hack into the network, and break the clues. A challenge which tested the Linux skills of participants. The first round is an online quiz from which the top fifteen teams qualify to the final round. In the second round participants will hack into a system which will progress them into the next level where another encryption is to be hacked. Archive 2014

Code It

Pengufest - Prototyping with open hardware explored Code Character The event consists of many levels. Each level has a character in a maze. The participants had to write a code to get the character out of the maze. The participants were judged based on fastest algorithms and highest number of levels solved.

Debugging Programming has enabled humans to make machines do enormous tasks at their whims. But, mistakes in the same waste human endeavours. Debugging is another coding based event which comes under the CODEIT banner, saw nearly 210 registrations of which 78 teams of two participated in the preliminary round, following which nearly 15 to 20 teams had been shortlisted to take part in the final round. Participants are required to correct errors in programming codes and predict the corresponding outputs and in the process to compete for prize money worth Rs 18000.

Archive 2014

Open source is one of the most successful demonstrations of power of human collaboration. Technologies like Linux, Mozilla Firefox and apache run more the majority of web servers and prove Linus’s law “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow”. Open Hardware paradigms like arduino attempt to do the same for rapid prototyping research. Pengufest an event cluster celebrating open source technologies hosted a talk by Ms PriyaKuber - MD of Arduino India on “Rapid tools for research - why open hardware? Why arduino India?” The talk covered many interesting aspects of doing prototyping on open hardware like getting support from forums/other users; having a lab at home resulting in a fail fast learn fast approach. The talk discussed the good the bad and the ugly aspects of DIY projects. The importance of leveraging technologies like Github, 3D-printing,Peripheral interface, internet of things and scripting languages like JavaScript/python for the success of open hardware .Special mention was made about making it easy(by proper documentation) for

Will you survive or fall into the abyss of buggy

non-technical users to dive into open hardware and Fritzing was mentioned as an effort in this direction. The session continued on to the opportunities provided by arduino India. Arduinoindia makes official Arduino hobby kits using locally sourced components and attempts to integrate Indian electronic market with global market. The lifecycle of electronic product design along with interfacing of the sensors was explained. The session ended with Dr.P J A Alphonse, Faculty Advisor Pragyan presenting a momento to Ms PriyaKuber. There was a guest lecture by VenkateshBasker through interactive video conferencing. He discussed the importance of participating in online competitions –both for higher studies as well as in industries or jobs. Mentioned the online coding sites like Topcoder, Codeforsys which has time constraints (~1hr) and sites like SPOJ which have no time limits and serve as high difficulty question banks.

Code It

Adaventure Adaventure has brought many popular technical events into picture since its birth in year 2004 and has been a regular crowd puller in Pragyan. Inheriting its name from Lady Ada, first lady programmer of the world, Adaventure has proved to be a competitive platform for computer geeks. Ada’venture ‘14 basically covers various disciplines of the software field.Crazy Programming, all about how efficient one can code in C. The participants are given a set of problems for which they’ll have to code in C with as less of the programming language constructs as possible. In bot wars, two AIs will be pitted against each other in a tournament. Thinking through the options and working through scenarios will give the competitive edge and potential winning move to make. Pair Programming requires savvy coding and smart cracking. Here, working hard on your code is not enough, one also need to unravel opponent’s unfinished code and complete it as fast as possible. More codes you crack, more points you win. This event consists of two phases. First phase is coding in which a set of problems will be given and users have to submit the correct solutions of the problems.In second phase the shortlisted users or contestants have to remove a part of code from the submitted code.

Byte Code Bytecode is an ACM ICPC style algorithm intensive online programming competition. In this one will be competing against best brains of the world .This event will give a world wide exposure on coding. Problem statements define the input to program and what it must output. One has to write the necessary processing / transformation from input to output.

CAPTION: sumquunt adi aut aut atis quiscia pro inimos que di dus conecuptas as maximo que n quiscia

Reverse engineering, Digital Fortress. Reverse coding is an event which tests ones logical, mathematical and basic programming skills. This coding based event saw a participation of nearly 56 teams of two in the preliminary round conducted on the 8th of March, which would then be shortlisted to about 20 teams for the final round. Participants had at stake, prize money worth 15000 Rs by trying to develop a suitable code that would match with the set of inputs and outputs given as questions. In this event ach one will be given the input and output of a program and they have to figure out what the program does. All one need is a basic knowledge of C/ C++ and an open mind. Digital Fortress is the coders’ battlefield to infiltrate the enemy and capture the flag. The first round was based on SQL, XSS and basic web vulnerabilities. The next round was based on buffer overflow.

Archive 2014

Robovigyan Emulating Humans

Robo wars Fist of god Bank Job Fist of God Copy cat

Copy Cat

ing challenge of precision, control and was one of the most

nerves where two bots start the challenge

Bank job is an event in which par-

challenging and interesting event of

simultaneously and had to pick up four

ticipants neededto pull off a heist in the

Robovigyan.The components required to

distinct coloured boxes and place them

Pragyan Bank. For this the participants

make the bot were provided to the par-

at their respective slots while matching

had to build an autonomous robot based

ticipants for free.

colours. Accomplishing this opened the

on image processing principles. The com-

door for next level, where the bots had to

ponents required to make the bot were

Every team was expected to build two

place boxes on a balance, the team which

provided to the participants for free. The

fully autonomous robots, of which one

tilts the balance towards its side within the

components were shipped to the address

(The Sensing Bot) has to follow the track,

given time limit wins bonus points. Each

provided by the registrants after their

map it and transfer the information to the

level hada time limit and part points were

abstract had been approved.

other (The Blind Bot) which was expected

awarded for specific tasks. The total points

to traverse the image of the track and

determined the winner of the duel. A total

In the arena, there was one red, one yel-

reach the finish line in the least possible

of fifteen teams participated. While a few

low and one green circle each represent-

time.

stumbled early, but managed to complete

ing Rs 100, Rs 20, Rs 10 respectively. The

in time, a few despite quite capable hard-

bot has to park on a colored circle for a

ware and a clean head start failed to clear

minimum of 3 seconds to collect the note.

the last stage. Nerves held the key. Above

The flaws in the security system and the

At Pragyanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;14 the war was fought with

all, participants seemed pleased with

exact amount of money to be collected

bots in head to head contests. An intrigu-

overall organisation, support and fair play.

were provided before the event to the

Apple of Eden

Archive 2014

Unlike last year, this year had three robots in the arena at the same time for the finals. The finals was between MYTH HADES, HARD TARGETS and AMS RIDERS. After an hour long battle between the three teams, AMS RIDERS emerged out victorious. Their robot was consistently the best robot throughout the tournament. Their aggression was unmatched and hence they were rewarded. When your opponents outnumber you and you have only yourself to rely on, the power of a God is what you need to crush your enemies. Be the ultimate master of puppets as you yield the power to control your bot at your fingertips. Guide your machine across the given course relying only on your dexterity and instinct to see your robotic creation triumph participants. Based on that and the specifica-

Participants from various parts of India par-

over the others. Wield the ultimate power.

tions provided in the problem statement, the

ticipated. Each team had to build a robot and

Trust only yourself. Deliver swift vengeance.

bot had to navigate the arena accurately and

battle with other robots through a metal to

finish the task in the least amount of time

metal clash. This battle took place in an arena

possible.

caged by metal wires. The arena was con-

Teams had to build a wireless controlled

structed based on the safety requirements of

machine that is controlled solely by wrist

audience watching the intense showdown.

movement. The robotscompeted in a one-

This is one of the biggest events of PRAGYAN

In the arena, there was a pit and the robot

on-one match following the basic system of

every year, this year was no different. The

which is pushed out of the pit was out of the

traditional sumo matches. The robot had to

event attracted a lot of spectators. The arena

competition. But last robot standing wasn’t

push its opponent out of the arena to win the

was at the centre of mechanical quadrangle

the only criteria for winning the competition.

match. The game required to be a defensive

and the spectators had an amazing view

The robots were judged based on aggression,

one and robot’s behavior was non-offensive

from the first and second floor of mechani-

damage received, damage inflicted and it’s all

and non-destructive to opponents.

cal department. The event was conducted in

round attack and defence capability.

ROBO WARS

Be the Fist

of God.

association with PSI racing team of NIT Trichy.

Robovigyan

Interviews

THE TEAM

THAT MADE IT HAPPEN

Interview

Q:Tell us about your growth in Pragyan and the path in becoming the organizing Head of Pragyan. A: It all started when I was in my first year. I was a very shy person when I stepped in the college. So I was waiting for a platform to solve this problem of mine. The opportunity came on August 19 when one of my seniors call me up to help him on a job that involved going to Trichy. When i finished the job I asked my senior what it was for. He told about Pragyan and its organizing committee. Then I got into the OC team in my second year and liked working in the team and the things fell into place in my third year and henceforth you see me here in my final year. Q: Now that your team has accomplished a very successful Pragyan. Where do you see your juniors taking Pragyan from here? A :I am pretty sure that any expectation of mine would be easily surpassed by the team next year. So I would just sit back and witness many more milestones of Pragyan that would be recorded next year. There are few things that I would like to see in the coming Pragyan like existence of dedicated server for Pragyan, Food Cards back in use and a greater participation from IITs. Q: What are the Achievements of Organizing Committee? 23

Archive 2014

Sarangan-OC With - Giridhar The main achievement of OC was handling the pressure in the days building up to Pragyan. Amount of pressure and stress handled by this team is not matched by any team which I have been a part of. We face a lot of problems regarding food coupons and last minute changes in venue. All thanks to the third years who took the pressure off me by handling the situation quite brilliantly and to the second years who worked all through nights to finish off the food coupon work. I personally liked the time I spent with the 2nd years guiding them treating them and spending stress free time with them. Q: Being the 10th edition of Pragyan, A Decade of celebrating Technology, how was the feeling to make this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Pragyan the best in the decade? A : As expected the pressure was immense on the entire team to deliver the goods this all-important year.And fittingly the year began with a bang thanks to the successful outreach events in Dubai. This year the work done by PSR team was paramount. Further this yearsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; NITTRO event is worth mentioning. There were long and tiring discussions about the venue of the event and a final decision. The response was for you to witness. Q: Can you enlighten some of the achievements in Pragyan this year? A : My first gratitude falls in for Shreejith and his design team. The Designs for Posters, Banners, Backdrops, PR Booklets, etc. were all unique and original ideas of his team.

Interview My first job as OH was the induction process for the 2nd years. I went to Srijith and asked him to design a poster for the same. He came up with a brilliant poster in less than 20 Min and I finalized it right away. Q: Any advice to next OH? A : All the present third years knew all the problems faced by me and the core team. So naturally they won’t repeat the mistakes that we did. All I would ask them of is to keep the admin informed about the status of Pragyan and keep in good terms with them so as to accomplish any help provided by the admin in a short period of time. I would like to see more usage bar code the next year. Q: ofTell us scanners about in your journey into Pragyan. Q: Among allinto the Core as Members who is A: I stepped Pragyan a Media relayour favorite tions managerone in myand thirdwhy? year.This was my first experience being a part of Pragyan. A : IfItI had choose just one thena the obvious choice wastothe best experience person could is Somnath. a workaholicasand is totally passionget. My He jobisdescription a media manate about Pragyan. I havecompanies known himand sinceturn my 2nd ager was to contact yearthem and have closeItsince Apart from him into been converts. was athen. big challenge, there is Priyanka and Rakesh who are but I managed to pull it off very always well. Af-fun to be with. Guru-Bhai is a person with whom I share ter seeing my dedication and enthusiasm, a great wavelength. up with similar my head decidedWe to both leave come the team to me. ideas and reason out life each ideaswhen in discusI couldn’t see my getother’s’ any better sions. she asked me to lead the Media relations team for Pragyan 14. When talking about discussions we can never leave out Q: Anirudh. is completely grounded and hears WhatHe is your work before, out during everyone’s ideas. TherePragyan? was a time before Pragand after yan when things didn’t really pan out the way we wanted to. us, Some us were dejected and that A :A:itFor ourofwork is before Pragyan. night and four talked to me and helped WeAnirudh basicallycame handled portfolios – Onme to getwebsites, back to work. Further I admire relationline Radio, Television andhisPrint shipmedia. with hisOur juniors. understanding with online website partners is Mutual Publicity. They Q: needed Your most memorable moment to do write ups about Pragyan in of Pragyan? their websites, publicise and try to make it reach as far as possible. In return we put up A: Undoubtedly theour final day valediction. the company as partners on website The amount of emotions flooded me and thetoentire and banners. Withthat Radio partners we try corefulfil teamtheir is something I would never forget. requirements and in return they played jingles about Pragyan and give RJ updates in their live channels. With television and print media, we have people coming over from the respective companies during the four days to cover Pragyan.

Archive 2014

Q: What you would miss the most about Pragyan? A : I would surely miss the arguments, the discussions, the late night meetings.Pragyan gave us all an enjoyable pressure which I think I would not experience it anywhere else. The other thing that I would miss the most are my juniors.

Vaibhav - Content With - Tharoon

Q: Could you tell us about your team? How was your experience in leading a team? A: Last year it was a group of 11 and this year our family has become a 22 member family. We have highly talented people in our team. Considering the given time span and the challenges they faced, they managed to pull off a great job. I learnt a lot from my team. The second years did a great job taking into fact their experience and knowledge. The second years did an amazing job and was helping in every possible way. I couldn’t have asked for a better team. Q: What are the problems faced by your team? A : Handling journalists when they come to see the fest is one of the biggest problems. Catering to their demands and taking care of their needs is a very sensitive issue. The way we handle them reflects directly on what goes into the books and we don’t want to be the on the bad page. Every junior was assigned to a journalist and they had to go through to a lot. It is also very difficult to deny their demands directly. We also did not receive proper media coverage for the Outreach events this year. There was no proper response from the Media personnel from other cities. There was nothing much we could do about it due to time constraints.

Dinoje- Hospitality

Interview

with - Tharoon Veerasethu Q :What is the work of Hospitality Team ? A: Once workshop registration starts, we provide rooms according to their requirements. Some people don’t register for any events but they register for room. We will eliminate such people. During pragyan, we need to go to hostel office, get permission, clean everything, put beds and maintain it properly. Once people start coming to pragyan, we need to take care of them in every aspect. When they face any problem, we help them as much as we can. Q : How many hostels did you use for accommodation?

Q : With which team did you work for most of the time during pragyan?

A : Jade, Aquamarine and the common rooms of rest of the boys hostel for boys. Opal and staff quarters are allotted for girls. 300 people are accommodated in girl’s hostel. Out of 3200, we provided accommodation for 1025.

A : CSG - Steve is the man.

Q : What are some of the difficulties you faced during Pragyan’14? A: Last year, accommodation was given to 669 members only. This year it was double that number. We couldn’t provide more than 1025 accommodations this year. Some colleges have separate accommodation blocks for the students from other colleges. Also, on day -1, people from Andhra Pradesh had arrived to attend Workshops scheduled for Day 0. We did not have anything ready by then and we were stunned to see the amount of people who turned up to attend Pragyan.

Q: Can we provide any alternative for accommodation? A : Next year, we may not be able to accommodate more than 1000 people because jade and aquamarine will be occupied. We need to restrict to 600700 only due to lack of accommodation. There is an Irrigational institute which contains 200 rooms which can accommodate 3-4 people in a room. They use these rooms for lectures. During the time of pragyan, we use this irrigational institute for accommodating the participants if they don’t have any lectures. We can provide bus facilities to these people according to the timings of the events or workshops. Q:Who is your favourite core member?

Q :How helpful was the barcode system?

A: Jonathan and Steve.

A: The barcode system was very effective. It reduced our work considerably. But, there was a problem in correlating the PIDs with the book ID

Q:What is Pragyan to you ? Family and I’m going to miss this family my entire life.

Archive 2014

Interview

Ajay- Institute Collobrations With - Sharan

Q:What is your role as head of institute collaborations? A: Basically I am one of the publicity heads of Pragyan. My main work was to set up tie ups with various other institutes. This is mainly done for exchange of participation and exchange of venue in the case of outreach events. Q: How is publicity done for outreach events? A : The way we go about publicizing is similar to that we do for Pragyan, but in the case of outreach events we concentrate on that particular region. The main aim for conducting and publicizing for outreach events to try to establish ourselves in that region. Hence attract the participants of outreach events to take part in Pragyan. Q: What were the achievements of your team this year? A: Firstly we had a footfall of 3200 and 13900 registrations. This was possible only because our team worked well together and personally I felt working together like we had done was a very difficult. But in the end we pulled it off. As a core member, successfully organizing Pragyan itself is a huge success. Because from a third person point of view it may not seem that difficult, but after so much planning and organizing Pragyan successfully was like giving birth to a child.

Archive 2014

Q: What are the difficulties you faced this year? A : One of the outreach workshops we did not have any registrations till the last week. And in the last week we put in a lot of effort and got 67 teams. Most of the events participations spikes at the last minute so till then our heart is in our mouth. Q: What are your expectations from next year’s publicity team? A : The juniors now what to do. They need to continue to have the same senti. If I have an expectation, I am sure they are going to surpass it. So I am not going to have any expectations and let them rock the show. Q : Who is your favorite core member? Anyone other than Rakesh. A: It would be Anirudh. Q : Your Favourite moment of PRagyan ? A: During valediction ceremony, when our team was being thanked, our juniors carried me in barn. They took me all the way outside on their shoulders and cut a cake. I saw many people cry and it was a really sentimental moment for me. I will remember it for a long time. And of course Sagar’s speech at Pragyan’13 valediction.

Interview

Going Public, or taking a company public through the IPO process, has many advantages and can be a lucrative step for its business. In order to determine whether or not to Go Public with a company, one should first weigh the pros and cons of going public, or doing an IPO, a Reverse Merger or acquiring a Public Shell

Muthu Veerapan Q: : Describe your journey in Pragyan? A:A: During my first year, Pragyan was just a technical fest and it meant only workshops to me. During My second year I got inducted into OC and I had to work under a senior. We were incharge ofPragyan electrical and it was a crucial part. During my third year I was allotted some juniors who would work under me and every year I grew closer to Pragyan. After 3 to 4 PI’s I was selected as the head for PSR because I used to work for PSR after postPragan work. Before giving the post to me senior advised me to do a good job and improve upon last Pragyan’s work. I should thank Pragyan for choosing me to be an Integral part of something big and I am immensely happy that I was part of Pragyan team and could bring about a positive change. Q: How was this Pragyan different from last year with respect to duties and otherwise? A: Being part of the core team is something totally different compared to the previous years.Improvements were seen in organizing part as well. We brought in new sponsors and People were committed to

Head-PSR

with - Saran

to their work. On the whole this Pragyan was better than the previous ones and I surely expect that next Pragyan will be better than Pragyan 14. Q: Q: What was your most memorable moment? A:There were many moments which I can say as most memorable. We called a poor potter from Tanjore to teach students to make pots for a day for Rs 2000/-.At the end of the day we gave him 2000 and he thought he got his complete amount and was about to leave but we asked him to wait and we gave him additional Rs 2500/for all the pots he made for the day. It was totally unexpected by him. He held my hand, looked at us and was almost in tears and was in full of thank you. I was really moved. I thank Pragyan for this golden opportunity. Q: Who is your favorite core member? A: I can’t pinpoint anyone saying he’s my favorite cause we have become a family.

Interview Q : How was your experience this Pragyan? A: It was a fun time or rather a time where we learnt a lot in so many ways. You learn how to interacrt with people, how to manage many things at the same time, learn how it is to cooperate with so many people from other teams. Dividing work amongst ourselves, how we remain dedicated from the team inductions in September till the end of this semester, because Pragyan doesn’t stop with just those 3 days , there’s the media report, the wiki page and so many other things. It was a very enriching experience, a humbling experience. Q : How would you describe your part in Pragyan? A : Well, our part is big. We end up being the face of Pragyan sometimes, as in the newspaper articles that come out. I was a part of the outreach event in Dubai and no one there actually knows what Pragyan is , so during the MOC’s and newspaper articles how we presented ourselves, is how everyone will look at us . The infotainment shows that happened, most people who come down to watch would have already had a hype about the shows, that hype is created because of the content or writing that they see. Together with the Design Team , we play a very important role in making Pragyan and its events visually appealing to the people who read or see. Q: Everyone gets senti when it comes to Pragyan, why and how for you? From our second year I was part of both GL and content. Pragyan is easily more than half of every academic year. And Pragyan is the best example as to how ur hard work pays off Q: What would u like your juniors to do for next year?

Archive 2014

A : First of all, I want to tell them about the troubles we faced this year. And they will have to make sure to overcome similar problems in future and also tackle new ones with ease. Regarding our work especially, it is fine when we have to collect information from individual teams but when we have to create a compiled report of Pragyan’s milestones or anything related to Pragyan, we will need inputs pass outs as well, so we are planning to start an archive of our own.

Contents Team With - Vishal Chander Q : What was your work before after and during Pragyan? A: Before Pragyan we had to write a couple of letters for the Pragyan group to invite schools and colleges , we had a publicity newsletter that was released , then we had the content work on the website and a little for the wiki page. We did the RJ updates and radio jingles that came up. During Pragyan is when we have our maximum work. We cover all the events, we report all of them at the end of each day and make the daily media report, which has to be done before 7 p.m. Post Pragyan work is mainly our own archives and the wiki page which has to be updated with this year’s content. Q :What was your most embarrassing moment during this Pragyan? A :Most embarrassing was on first day’s Pragyan mania. There was this huge misunderstanding between us and the infotainment. We thought that the infotainment team would be ready with the design and we were ready with the content, the infotainment team thought we would do the design and they didn’t do the design as well, so in the end there was like one hour left for the event to start and I gave Stanish the content and he thought that it was fully ready version and gave it to his juniors for printing and it was printed too. I had actually written in brackets that “this should be in bold” and stuff and all that was exactly printed as such and it turned out to be embarrassing as it was almost distributed to all the participants.

Archive 2014

Infotainment

where fun meets the fundamental The very soul of this technomanagerial festival, a breath of fresh air amidst all the gruesome technical battles and thought-provoking lectures, Infotainment aims to shatter the long standing boundary between technology and entertainment. The Infotainment nights promises all the flair, fanfare and fun to keep the techies and non techies alike feted with the shows stretching across all genres- be it acrobatics, freestyle dance, beatboxing, illusion, light shows or comedy night-outs.

Dance is the hidden language of the soul - Martha Graham ”

Since its inception, we at Infotainment try justifying our motto of keeping everyone entertained, hence we go to great lengths scourging the land lining up a myriad number of shows each edition. Some notable being Solar Punch, world’s only solar powered music band, Carles Lopez, a member of the Reactable Systems team. Stigma, the LED dance group and the online comedy maestros TVF. Also, Infotainment proudly presents the second edition of its hugely successful talent hunt show-Pragyan’s Got Talent, challenging talents across the country to battle it out for recognition, fame and a handsome prize money!

Infotainment

Fun Factor of the Fest Uv glow baloon speed painting shobana - dance

Pragyan 2014 Inauguration was followed by a performance of Vilas Nayak. Vilas Nayak is a speed painter. He painted a sketch of Dr.Abdul Kalam, Prof.Manisundaram sir and a painting depicting unity and 50 years of NIT Trichy. He was hailed by all.

talk - Kirubha Shankar

Meanwhile, UV glow Balloons show was a big success. 250 +

PRagyanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Got talent

were released amidst LED lights. Function was inaugurated by our

East India comedy

a formation of Pragyan symbol and the atmosphere was joyous.

Balloons inflated by Hydrogen gas and painted with glow paints beloved Director, Dr. Srinivasan Sundarrajan. Participants stood in The event was held in SAC.

Infotainment

The evening of the first day of Pragyan 2014 started with a conference by Kirubaa Shankar. It was his interaction cum talk on how we can manage our priorities

adhering to Managerial part of Pragyan. The talk was a collaborative effort and was filled with motivation. It was a crowd puller for the next performance byShobana. While the conference was more of a subtle event, the performance of Shobana was sturdy and energised the crowd. She was accompanied with her students from the Dance academy she runs in Chennai. The first performance was a solo act and the second was a group illustration of a scene from Mythology. Pragyanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s got Talent season 2 saw more number of participants than its previous edition.

The participants with varying talents but one aim, to win the cash prize worth INR 40k. Talents like a kid playing drum set and other musical instruments, a girl singing

a mash up live while playing guitar, Bartender act, and Martial arts etc.

The final day of Pragyan saw a light hearted yet a very success-

ful comedy act by the East India Comedy fame Sapan and Sahil. The jokes revolved around the general life of a NITTian to general life of an Indian citizen. The show was attended by the Director and many professors

Archive 2014

Interview

Infotainment Team WITH

Kushmitha Unnikumar team. By the end of February and beginning of March, we start to get the equipments required for the events Q :When did the work start ? A: Basically we at Infotainment work throughout the year. We started planning from June/ July when we were looking for shows and were deciding whether we wanted enteratinment or technical advancement and stuff like that. We were working on a lot of innovative ideas and deciding whether it is possible to implement them this year. We decide on the shows keeping in mind the financial constraints and by December, mail them and confirm whether they are available during Pragyan. Our next task was to work out all possible combinations to decide when to have which event. By February, we get the MOUs signed and contact the marketing

Q :What were some of the glitches you had this year? A: There was a commotion regarding curfew for girls. One more thing was that it would have been better if Pragyan could have been pushed a week later, which could have given us more time to plan out things. Q: What were some of the i nnovations by your team this year? A : This year we had a lot of innovative ideas. We started an Infotainment page on fb which encamps fun facts and trivias, innovative events which happen all around the world. We wanted to create a brand called â&#x20AC;&#x153;Infotainmentâ&#x20AC;? where in learning Science and tech-

nology can be such fun. This is our ulterior motive. We are hoping that in years to come, that page could be an incentive or act as a marketing tool and attract sponsors. Also, this being the golden jubilee Pragyan, we thought of making a documentary on Pragyan . However it was dropped due to other commitments. Pragyan Informals was one thing which hit off well this year. Things like Sudoku championship, Anti chess, kept happening all day long which did see a lot of participation. And then there were glow balloons which was a brilliant idea.. We had lanterns and glow paint... so why not make glow balloons. We worked on it and those few minutes when all the balloons were left in the air were amazing. Q:: Do you have any suggestions to the next heads ? A: Stick to what you believe. Envision new things and how you want the next Infotainment of Pragyan to be. There`ll be a lot of criticism and discouragement from people around.

Q: Who is your favourite junior?

But then, when u realise and anticipate it happening will u be able to implement it. Whenever u decide on an idea, take a poll on and ask about it to people around you. Get their opinions on whether it would actually work and once decided, do not step back. Always be yourself. It doesn`t matter how you get the work done. The final thing is what that matters. Always lay emphasis on the team and not on yourself. Its team work that counts at the end of the day. Stand for the team. Be good or bad, raise your opinion. Q: Who is your favourite core member ? A :There`s no favourites such. We have been together through rough times and happy times as well. I have known Pinky and Rahul since first year. Again all are different. But if you insist, I would pick Rahul. He gave us too much freedom to work on.

And most of all had a hell lot of trust and faith in us. Q: What is your favourite moment? A : Not one but plenty. After the day gets over, we sit and analyse as to how the event went. Those sessions will always remain close to my heart. That one moment when Vilas Nayak got a standing ovation, when the balloons were left and started glowing in the dark..that 5 seconds, that touching moment when Shobana gave the Vande Mataram performance and that moment when the core members were like itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s getting better day by day. All these little moments and comments mean a lot and will always stay close to my heart.

There`s no single favourite junior as such. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the team that comes to my mind and not a single junior. Each junior is unique in his/her way. I would like to mention about Raghavi. She came up with a lot of ideas which we rejected because of the constraints. She was the one who gave the idea of having Bharatnatyam. She always remained grounded. She knew what she had to do and she did it. Then Aditya Prasad. He got Varun Agarwal`s contacts who agreed initially but couldn`t come because of other reasons. Then Vinayak, Smithan, Reshma, Dinesh, Rocky, Ravi who all gave in a hell lot of ideas. Thanks to Ravi, we also had a design team within Infotainment who helped us design the logo.

Out Reach Expanding the regime

Srishti - 2 young minds Quiz Pragati campus connect Wired

Pragati

was a two-day hands-On

workshop held in CUSAT, Cochin on January 18th and 19th , 2014 in association with Texas Instruments. It covered the architecture and applications of Energy Efficient Ultra Low Power 16 bit RISC Mixed Signal Microcontroller MSP430 from Texas Instruments. The data, program memory, peripheral organization and its special features were covered. The peripherals include I/O Ports,Universal Serial Interfaces. The course was structured and tailored to meet the need of the engineering students to get a very good exposure of Distributed Data Signal Acquisition and

Archive 2014

Control Mixed Signal Controllers which

Pradesh, the workshop turned out to be a

can be very well extrapolated to any other

huge success.

platform.The workshop gathered a huge participation of around 120 students.

Over two days, the workshop was conducted in four sessions - introduction to

in association with the MBS

basic electronics, introduction to micro-

Group, an Indian management consulting

controllers, introduction to DTMF decoder

firm with expertise in educational training,

ICs and designing a mobile phone con-

Pragyan,

conducted a workshop â&#x20AC;&#x153;SRISHTI-2â&#x20AC;?

trolled robot. The event had a mix of theo-

Mobile Controlled and Autonomous

retical lessons and hands-on bot building

Robotics in Hyderabad on 21st and

sessions. The participants were provided

22nd of December 2013. With Chaitanya

with a very robust multi-purpose bot-

Bharathi Institute of Technology (CBIT) as

development kit which enabled them to

the host college and with participation

build their own bot by deploying their

of about 250 enthusiastic students from

own logic.

engineering colleges all across Andhra

Dubai young mind’s Quiz, Pragyan’s first International outreach, Pragyan Young Minds Inter-school Quiz, was held on 16th December’13 at the Etisalat Academy, Dubai and witnessed a clash of over 50 competitive teams from all over the U.A.E. This event was an attempt to promote and foster a co-existential relationship between Man and Technology. For a decade, Pragyan has worked tirelessly towards this goal, by churning out nine memorable editions, each of which has

enlightened, encouraged and inspired an entire generation of engineers. Sponsored by Emirates Gas in association with Knowledge Planet, Score Plus and Almarai, the quiz was attended by over

Pragyan Campus Connect,

Pragyan Marketing Team (PMT) initiative was an informal Interaction session between the first year students and the final year students of NITT. It was held to brief them about what lay in wait in the forthcoming years in college and how best to make use of this learning curve. The session was primarily to brief them about the opportunities that would be available to them namely the various Clubs ,Technical , Cultural , Social Initiatives, Sports and the various Teams involved in the organisation of Pragyan and Festember. Also in discussion were the channels of communication to the

a hundred students. For the first ever outreach College Administration for matters pertain- programme outside India, the event was a huge ing to problems faced in the college i.e. lack success and will be the stepping stone for many of infrastructure, On Duty (OD) Certificates more in the future. and other day-to-day problems. This second edition of PCC was held in the EEE Auditorium on 6 November, 2013. It witnessed a large turnout of about 250 students who forged a highly entertaining session. It was a Pragyan

club of NIT, Trichy. The event took place at LHC and saw an enthusiastic participation by the school students. Students were given

Marketing Team (PMT) initiative

materials and were helped in making their

Wired

racing contest among those who participated.

was Pragyan’s initiative to intro-

own model cars. The event ended by having a

duce the field of robotics to school students. School students were invited to attend the workshop on robotics conducted by RMI

Out reach events

Archive 2014

Interviews

THE TEAM

THAT MADE IT HAPPEN Rahul Ajith Kumar Chair person Mechanical Engineering

Interview

Archive 2014

Vaibhav - Media

With - Tharoon

Interview

Q: What set apart Pragyan 14 from others? A: This year was the 10th edition of Pragyan and it is the Golden Jubilee year for our college. This helped us a lot. We could get a lot of converts this year because of this reason. Pragyan 14 went international and had Outreach events outside the country which made it bigger. We got the UNESCO patronage which made Pragyan better. I couldn’t think of it special Q: Tell usmaking about youranymore. journey into Pragyan. Q: What are your expectations for Pragyan 15? into Pragyan as a Media relaA: I stepped tions manager in my third year.This was my A: : first Lots experience of changes being duringa the of partcourse of Pragyan. my It years We had aa Television was in thePragyan. best experience person could converts thisjob year.description Next year I as would expect get. My a media mana lotager more from my team. Spreadingand outturn was to contact companies Printthem media not only to It English Tamilinto converts. was a and big challenge, nadu newspapers but also to other but I managed to pull it off verystates well. Afall over India. More Media coverage for the ter seeing my dedication and enthusiasm, Outreach events. More number particimy head decided to leave the team to me. pants. Pragyansee to amy whole newany level. I couldn’t life get better when she asked me to lead the Media relations Q: Your best moment team for Pragyan 14. in Pragyan. A: The valediction ceremony. Whenbefore, the Q: What is your work treasurer was and calling out myPragyan? name, my team during after bowed and carried me. It was the greatest moment. willus, cherish this moment forever. A :A: IFor our work is before Pragyan. We basically handled four portfolios – Online websites, Radio, Television and Print Q: media. One word you would Our that understanding withuse online to describe Pragyan. website partners is Mutual Publicity. They needed to do write ups about Pragyan in A: I cannot describepublicise it one word. happens their websites, andIttry to make it to be the best of my life. therewe is put no up reach as farpart as possible. InSo return word tocompany explain how great and important the as our partners on website it is and to me. banners. With Radio partners we try to fulfil their requirements and in return they played jingles about Pragyan and give RJ updates in their live channels. With television and print media, we have people coming over from the respective companies during the four days to cover Pragyan.

Archive 2014

Vaibhav - Content With - Tharoon

Interview

Jonathan Morais Q : Tell us about your experience in Pragyan. A: I’ve been working for Pragyan for the past four years, and there has always been night outs.. Awake all four nights, is something I can never forget. It’s always the same guys doing the night outs. As a head it’s very difficult, because you’re never supposed to leave the PR desk. This year, even the juniors got very Pragyansenti and said that they’d miss me and that this was their best Pragyan. Q: Any changes that you would like to see at next year’s Pragyan? A: This year we had 9 workshops and they are given preference for hospitality. Three of those workshops went on for two days. We obviously can’t provide accommodation for everyone. The registrations for accommodation started with the registrations for workshops, and this is unfair for the people interested in participating in events. We asked the workshop team for the PIDs and other details of the participants and the whole process was very hectic as there was no app-mod for the workshops. So, an app-mod for the workshops is something I’d recommend strongly.

Head-PR

with - Taveen

Q:Any advice you would like to give to your junior taking up your position? A : Never stay away from the PR desk! As heads, we never stay away from the desk. PR and Hospi had 4 heads, 2 boys and 2 girls (co heads). The girls obviously have to leave after a certain time. But the PR and Hospi (boys) heads have to cooperate and work together. Q: Your favourite junors A: I personally would mention Dwarakesh and Andujan of third years and Ajay Immanuel of second year who single handedly took care of guest house accomodation. Q: Most memorable during Pragyan?

moment

A : The night outs! Other than that, this year PR and Hospi took initiatives for roll call extensions. Before Pragyan I shouted at a junior so bad that my voice box failed and from then on my co-heads were doing most of the instructing and shouting

Interview

Rakesh Nair Q:What does Pragyan publicity do? A: ) Pragyan publicity is all about bringing footfall to Pragyan. It is to ensure that as year by year as we are increasing the events & workshops and as Pragyan is getting bigger, we also bring down more participants and quality participants. Q: Pragyan’14, your last Pragyan and you are the publicity head. How was your experience? A:The day I was given the opportunity to be the Pragyan publicity head was one of the best days I can recall in my life. I had my own set of goals to achieve. Even now I feel there are things on my list which I have not completed. But overall it had been an amazing journey with an amazing set of juniors. The way the juniors have responded and the way the 3rd years and the 2nd years have worked with amazing coordination have been exceptional. The 2nd years is an amazing batch and a few juniors are there who are really good.

Head-Publicity

with - Eric

mates, then went onto to become roommates.We joined the same team-publicity, and almost most of the teams that we’ve worked in, we’ve worked together only. As a co-head Ajay was always there to support me, calm me down when I got tensed. Q: Your most memorable Pragyan’14 moment? A: During the valediction, my juniors carried me, Ajay and PG out of the barn to the flagpole and they had a cake arranged for us to cut over there. It was really something sweet for my juniors to do that. Q: Any specific advice to the next publicity head? A: No head is perfect. PG had some mistakes and I’ve tried to correct them and made sure that they were not repeated. I always tell this to my juniors to keep a note of things in which are going wrong and keep correcting them if possible.

Q:How was the experience of working with Ajay as a co-head A: In our first year we were bench-

Interview

Q:What were the major innovations this time? New additions to Pragyan, as part of the CSG Team? A: Registrations and part of the food coupon distribution was made online this time. We have changed the whole scheme of PR and hospitality; introducing 4 different series of Pragyan IDs for easy identification and automation. Certificate printing was totally automated this time. Q: Were there any major glitches this Pragyan? A :There were quite a few confusions with the new automated system in place. It was mainly due to lack of coordination and communication between various teams and the event managers. This is bound to happen in a fest of such great magnitude. We are meeting with QA on this and shall definitely do our best to rectify all the mistakes in Pragyan ‘15. Q: Why Pragyan over Festember? What is special about Pragyan? A: Basically, we come from Delta. We are not Pragyan-entities; we work for both Pragyan and Festember. But, right from the start, I have known Pragyan better than Festember. When I started work with Delta in my 2nd year, Pragyan was the first fest I worked on. I have an emotional connect with Pragyan, mostly due to the people involved in Pragyan. There were seniors 45

Archive 2014

Shriram-CSG With - Lakshmi

who constantly supported us and kept a storm of ideas coming, so we could make Pragyan better. Even though most of them had nothing to do with CSG, we had a lot night outs together. It makes it all the more memorable. So basically, it’s about the connection I have with people in Pragyan that makes it very special. Q: Is there any memorable incident that you’d like to share with us? A : Pragyan was hacked when I was in second year. Of course, the situation was brought under control; thanks to the seniors then. It was then that I came to know many of my seniors. Though it was a bit disastrous, this is where my Pragyan journey began and is very memorable. Q:If there’s one core member that you’d like to mention, who would that be? A : There’s no one special team mate in Pragyan ’14; all of them are pretty close and connected. Talking about my seniors, it was Kaushik Reddy who came up with a lot of ideas last Pragyan. He was the one who initiated the new PR system in place today. And, Nivas of course. Q: Tell us something about your juniors A: The junior batch is definitely a more talented batch and a more efficient one. All jobs that were assigned to them was finished on time, no delays whatsoever. I am sure they would deliver a better Pragyan in years to come.

Interview

Q: Tell us about your journey into Pragyan. A: I stepped into Pragyan as a Media relations manager in my third year.This was my first experience being a part of Pragyan. It was the best experience a person could get. My job description as a media manager was to contact companies and turn them into converts. It was a big challenge, but I managed to pull it off very well. AfQ: What message wouldand youenthusiasm, like to leave ter seeing my dedication to the nextdecided CSG Team? my head to leave the team to me. I couldn’t see my life get any better when A: I would just like to take into account all they she asked me them to lead the Media relations haveteam learnt in Pragyan ’14 and make sure they don’t for Pragyan 14. repeat the same mistakes next year. I am sure they will Q: be able to manage well. work before, What is your during and after Pragyan? Q:Would you like to share with us a few compliments youishave received A :A: For us, that our work before Pragyan. for your WeTeam? basically handled four portfolios – Online websites, Radio, Television and Print A : The website highly appreciated. personally media. Ourwas understanding with Ionline think it had apartners very good design. Publicity. Credits toThey Srijith; he website is Mutual hadneeded done anto amazing job. do write ups about Pragyan in their websites, publicise and try to make it Q: 12. That one word that pops toup your reach as far as possible. In return weup put mind I sayas“Pragyan” thewhen company our partners on website and banners. With Radio partners we try to A : Senti fulfil _/\_ their requirements and in return they Pragyan is too senti. That’s one reason why RJ people played jingles about Pragyan and give workupdates a lot forinPragyan. their live channels. With television and print media, we have people coming over from the respective companies during the four days to cover Pragyan.

Archive 2014

Vaibhav - Content With - Tharoon

Interview

Aravind Krishnan Q: How was this Pragyan different for you? A: ) The main difference for me was that this year I was making my own decisions. Previous years I was following instructions and made minor decisions on my own. Also this year I had much less ground work. This year I was responsible for my decisions and had to ensure that I made the right call. Q: How was your Pragyan experience? A: First I was part of Pragyan Marketing Team, up until a month before Pragyan’13 I was doing my marketing work and then I started working with GovindMulanjur, the events team head of Pragyan’13. I had greater experience working for Pragyan in my fourth year. The amount of effort I put in my fourth year was greater than in my third year and I spent most of my time in A-halls this year Q: Any changes you would like to suggest for next year’s Pragyan? A: Well there a thousand suggestions I would like to make for the next edition of Pragyan, but in short I would like to reduce

Head-events

with - Prabhu

number of events and conduct a few quality events. Another suggestion would be to purchase audio-video equipment instead of renting it every year, this would save a considerable amount of funds in the long run. Q: What is your advice to next year’s head of the events team? A: I have created a log of all the mistakes I have made and will be giving it to the next head. In a nutshell, this is a wonderful opportunity to do a lot of things and with an entire team under him I would like the next head to take Pragyan to greater heights. Q: What was your favorite event this year? A: The one event that stood out for me was the Informal’s event anti-chess, it was very interesting to watch. Nittro, Robo Wars and Junkyard Wars were also amazing this year. Q: Your most memorable moment of all the editions of Pragyan you have been a part of? A : Sagar Verma’s speech - Pragyan 13 !

Interview

Abhinav Guru Industrial Collaboration

Q: What was your most memorable/ embarrassing moment during Pragyan’14? A:Memorable moment will be 3 days before Pragyan when the title sponsor got converted. It’s not for the money that they gave, because we already had money that the marketing team generated, it was for the brand name of PMT. PMT has a name and it deserved the success of getting a cherry on the top. There were a lot of times when we decide to approach some companies just for title sponsor and even to compromise on things like quality. But then we decided not to because we had ethics and also mainly because we didn’t want to sell Pragyan just for a title sponsor. Then we worked to

wards getting a title sponsor in the proper way. We contacted companies appropriately, even those that had turned us down earlier. And once that worked out, that was a very memorable moment because it’s not for me, not for Pragyan, but for the brand name of PMT. Most embarrassing moment was when people thought POQ was cancelled because marketing did not generate enough funds. The truth is that it was because of our attempt to re-align Pragyan, to have events which will generate technology or celebrate technology or impart knowledge and because it didn’t fit in any of these categories, POQ was scraped. Not many people understood the reasons and were under the impression that marketing was at fault. That was very embarrassing

WITH

Vishal Chander

Q:How big is PMT’s role in Pragyan? A:A It is one of the most important roles in Pragyan. I wouldn’t say the most because Pragyan teams co-exist and we depend on each other for the successful execution of any of our initiatives. Without the other teams PMT is nothing. But then most initiatives that we plan need financial support and that is the reason why marketing is one of the most important roles in Pragyan. Q: How would you describe your juniors? They are a lovely set of people, very sweet, hardworking, and dedicated and I’m not flattering them but its truth said. There have been times when their performances have dropped and that is when we got to know the reason and we tried to connect with them in a deeper level, ask them what their problems were, what was pulling them down, we tried to help them sort it out. And as days progressed,

we also wanted to work harder and harder and, that’s how the team functioned. Surely I have to mention the video that they made. That was something we did not expect at 3 in the morning. I somehow knew that they had ordered a cake (even though I wasn’t supposed to know) and that they had planned a surprise and I didn’t want to spoil it. But when I came to A13 hall (Pragyan day3 3.30am) after all the counting and accounting for, after all the running around, when they played the video I had nothing to say and was taken back. It’s something I can’t forget ever. It meant a lot to me. Q: What would you like to tell the next PMT batch? A : I want them to look at Pragyan the way I see Pragyan. I want them to contribute in every way they can so that they allow Pragyan to take them to greater heights. I believe I have already told some of them at times about what Pragyan is and what it should be. I’d like to talk to them about what Pragyan is and leave their duties and responsibilities to the next core members. There are many people who are very much talented and can contribute to Pragyan in a great way. Q: Do you have any major changes that you want the core to implement in the next edition of Pragyan? A : I would want Pragyan to basically have a vision. Pragyan is an organisation but then even though we have had 10 years of Pragyan, we have not yet set a vision for the organisation to strive in that field. And I want the events to be serving some purpose by creating technology. There are limitations but. If we bring too much practicality, we lose participants and numbers are important too. So there should be some events in which some technology is actually created and that there is some real life situation in which the solution can be involved to help someone or the society around us.

Events

Guest lectures L Sivasankaran: He has over 30 years’ experience in the I.T industry having worked in senior management positions at NVIDIA, Oracle, Sun Micro Systems and Silicon Graphics.

Ram Gopal: A guest lecture was delivered by the dynamic professor from the department of Electrical Engineering in IIT-Bombay, Dr. V. Ramgopal Rao. He belongs to the Centre of Excellence in Nanoelectronics (CEN). Dr. Marcus du Sautoy Marcus du Sautoy, OBE is a professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford. He is president of the Mathematical Association. His academic work mainly concerns group theory and number theory. He also writes for The Guardian and The Times.

Tevenos It’s wasn’t the conventional Guest Lecture you’d expect to see at a Techfest, but it was more of an interactive session between the participants and the anchors of the event, the three executives from Tevenos, India’s leading Banking Software Company.

T V Narendran The above maxim proved to be good for TV Narendran, Managing Director, TATA Steel and the lesson this business executive has learnt is to stick on even when the situation gets sticky. Narendran is a Tata loyalist, who has spent 25 years Archive in the company. 2014

Kiruba Shankar Kiruba Shankar, the CEO of business blogging, and founding director of F5ive Technologies was welcomed enthusiastically by the lively crowd.

Valerie Wagoner Valerie Wagoner, an entrepreneur who is on her second Indian startup, ZipDial, a Bangalore-based mobile enterprise that helps companies market to consumers gave a guest lecture on Day2 of Pragyan ‘14 Jamie Hynneman Jamie Hynneman, co-host of Mythbusters on Discovery channel spoke to a very enthusiastic crowd over video conference. A full house greeted him as he looked on from the other corner of the world.

Venkatesh Basker He discussed the importance of participating in online competitions, both for higher studies as well as in industries or jobs. He also mentioned about the online coding sites like Topcoder,Codeforsys which has time constraints (approximately 1hr)and sites like SPOJ which have no time limits and serve as high difficulty question banks. Mathematical problems are available at Project Euler. He also talked at length about ACM ICPC in which he himself was a two time world finalist (2008, 2010). Requirements for this are-Algorithms like greedy,dynamic programming, geometry.

Anirudh & Pragun Anirudh is a Masters student and research assistant at the Fluid Interfaces Group and Pragun Goyal is a Masters student at the Responsive Environments research group at the MIT Media Lab.They are inventors of Le Chal, an unobtrusive navigation aid for the visually impaired and Sohum, a noninvasive safe device that has the potential to touch and improve the quality of lives throughout the world. These young innovators are ‘serving the common mass’ in its truest sense.

Dhananjayan Govind Mr.Dhananjayan Govind is the CEO of Home Entertainment Business and is involved in producing and marketing films in South Indian languages. He is one of the two founding members of Moser Baer entertainment

Interview

Guest Lectures Team

with - Sharan OOMmEn Q : What work do you have during Pragyan? Abhijit: Our main job is to organise the guest lecture series of Pragyan. We have a huge database of speakers and we keep contacting and try to coax them to come to Thuvakudi and give a lecture. Since Pragyan is a non-profit organisation we cannot pay the lecturers and so have to advertise Pragyan to them and convince them to give us a lecture or give us a video conference. Mukund: That is not an easy job because a lot of people think that we pay the lecturers to come here but that is not true. We have to convince the lecturers to come to here and give a lecture. Q: What are the differences you felt Pragyanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;14 as a whole? Abhijit: Pragyan has definitely improved a lot. In my first year guest lectures used to happen in one of the A halls and during the video conferences the firewall used to keep on popping up but now we have the EEE auditorium and a dedicated link that provide fast internet for video conferences. So I would say technically and in terms of infrastructure too we have improved a lot. Mukund: Pragyan has definitely improved a lot. Every year the participation keeps on increasing. Also Pragyan gives an opportunity to the students to host their own events which has been happening for the past two editions I guess. Exhibitions too were fantastic this year. It has been a good ride overall. Q: What do you have to say about your team? Abhijit: The GL team now has three heads but usually has three or four heads, six third years and six second years. GL team has not changed a lot and modus operandi has remained quite the same.

Mukund: I am very happy to say that this year a lot of students gave GL as their first preference and in general interest for GL has increased through the years. Q : Next year where do you think guest lectures would be and where do you think Pragyan would go? Abhijit: I have no clue. It is up to the juniors. Past couple of years have been about ISO certification and now that we have got it we should diversify. Mukund: Every year there is something new. This year we had the barcode scanner for the registration and got a new ISO certification too. Last year we had the card system instead of food coupons.

Q: What is your most memorable part of Pragyan? Abhijit: Definitely listening to the lectures and going out with the lecturers and eating at the expense of the college! Mukund: It is the same here. Eating at the college expense is pretty good but the opportunity to interact with some of the most brilliant people in the world is great

A : Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no particular favourite junior. I like all of them; everybody has put in a great deal of effort and has worked really well to pull this off. Archive 2014

PRagyan social Responsibility

Giving back to the society in which we innovate

Pragyan Social Responsibility in association with The Third Dimension, Aero- modelling Club of the National Institute of Technology,Trichy organised an event to spread interest and awareness in science among underprivileged school students. It was conducted at a Tamil Nadu State Government Matriculation Higher Secondary School Thiruverumbur on 6th December 2013. The event consisted of simple experiments conducted with things available around us to help the school students understand the basic concepts they study in school.

After the session Mr.MuthuVeerappan, Head-Pragyan Social Responsibility, explained the students about the admission procedure of various colleges in and around Trichy. The main emphasis was on IITs, NITs and colleges under Anna University. Contact details were provided to the students for further assistance and also to receive study materials and college books for entrance exams free of cost as a part of Pragyan Social Responsibility.

A Science fair for school students was organised with the chief guest being Dr.Raghavan as the Chief Guest. It saw participation from some of the most reputed schools in and around Trichy. Students from a school in Neyveli won the fair. In a first of its kind iniiatiative in NIT, Trichy; PSR took to pasting stickers in all hostels of NIT, Trichy to spread awareness about conservation of energy. A pottery professional from Tanjore was called

called in to conduct a workshop on Pottery during Pragyan. The workshop saw huge participation.

The professional was very delighted to see huge interest among students for his dying art.

Cross Fire TIPPING POINT

WORDS

Cross fire - Battle of thoughts ! Pragyan,

the

annual

techno managerial fest of NIT Trichy hosts over fifty events, ten workshops, six guest lectures, a variety of infotainment shows and several online events. With workshops on cutting edge technologies like the Big Data workshop (Microsoft), the speech controlled robot workshop and the satellite launching workshop and various competitions that test core engineering skills, Pragyan’14 marks a decade of celebrating technology. One of the major highlights of Pragyan, Crossfire- never fails to impress. Welcomed by a rousing audience of nearly 500 students from in and around Trichy, Crossfire 2014, the panel discussion was a major success. The discussion was centred around the role

of youth in nation building and was taken forward by the panellists Mr D. R Karthikeyan, former Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, Mr.SantoshHegde, former justice of the Supreme Court and former Lokayukta of Karnataka, Mr.Bhagwan Singh, executive editor of the Deccan Chronicle, Group Captain N. Thinakaran, Tamil Nadu Commanding Officer, currently serving in the IAF and Mr.KarthikJanakiram, a Supreme Court lawyer with deep interest in social initiatives. The event was moderated by Prof. G. Balakrishnan, former vice principal and Head of English Department, St. Joseph’s College, Trichy. The discussion began with panelists voicing introductory opinions. Mr. Karthikeyan pointed out that everyone

can be an agent of change by helping just one other person, be it helping someone to learn a new skill or become an entrepreneur and provide jobs. He pointed out that society is a collective of individuals and hence an individual’s choice matters. He also threw light on the success of Dr. A. P. J Abdul Kalam, achieved by sheer hard work, honesty and integrity. He also added that today’s youngsters should follow the examples of Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, AzimPremji and the likes, who not only created wealth but also spent their hard earned money on the under privileged across the world, without any consideration to nationality, language or religion. community.

Cross Fire TIPPING POINT

Talking along the same lines, Mr. SantoshHegde said that making excuses is a sign of not being accountable. He also voiced his opinion on the unabashed celebration of wealth and power which is the primary reason for changing values. Speaking on the formation of new political parties in the country, Mr. Hegde was all for the participation of the youth in national politics. He, however, rated the recent performance in the Delhi assembly as very poor. Opining on the recent bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, he said that the development of a region is the responsibility of the elected representatives of the region and bifurcating the states cannot be an answer to the question of development. Group Captain Thinakaran mentioned the growing populations’ needs and the need for youth to look towards a growth oriented approach. Mr. KarthikJanakiram stressed on the fact that a leader is one who takes initiatives. According to him political parties look to attract youngsters because youth have become a significant force to reckon with. The moderator, Prof. G. Balakrishnan said “ We have enough factors to divide us in caste, creed, WORDS religion and regional affinities, but not enough of them to unite us and it is the responsibility of the students of institutions such as NIT’s and IIT’s where more than half the student population is drawn from outside their respective states.” Mr. Bhagwan Singh, then, stressed on the importance of reacting to situations and to not shrug responsibility. He also said that with the advent of social media, the ‘I’ did not end with any one particular individual.

Interview

Dinesh Sukumar Q : How has your experience withPragyan ? A: Pragyanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;14 was nothing like previous editions of Pragyan. We had to planned to bring in some major personalities from the political arena for Pragyan to talk on topic of youth and politics, but due to certain constrains we could not go ahead with the plan. Even with last minute hiccups we managed to pull of one of the best crossfires Pragyan has witnessed. I enjoyed working with thejuniors, and interacting with the guests. Q : What are your memorable moments in Prayanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;14 as a head? A The interaction with the special guests, especially D.R.Karthikeyanand SanthoshHegde. It is not very often one gets a chance to meet talented and accomplished people in their own right. The few minutes of interaction I had with the panelist is something I will remember for a long time. The chance to mentor juniors was also an experience to cherish. Q : What is your advice to the next crossfire head?

Head-Crossfire

with - Jayanth

A: Try to fix a topic which is both engaging, and controversial without having to put yourself through the trouble of inviting controversial speakers because you may end up having to be at loggerheads with the admin with regards to getting clearance for the speakers. Q : What are the major difficulties and challenges you have faced in pragyan? A : Not confirming the speakers beforehand. We were not clear about the formalities needed to get permission from administration. Failure to communicate with the transport team.

Workshops

SESIMIC DESIGN

A Seismic Design Workshop was conducted on 8th and 9th of March here at NIT Trichy as a part of the workshops. It was a civil centred workshop which pulled in around 200 budding civil engineers from all around. The workshop was conducted by Civil Simplified, a venture known for conducting civil engineering related workshop throughout the country. The workshop was conducted by Mr.Rahul, B.Tech IIT Kanpur. The one day workshop was conducted in two sessions. For the morning session the students got the initial ideas of earthquake, how to make earthquake resistant structures and an interactive session. The afternoon session was held in the I-Lab where the students got to use the SAP software and was given B practical training on how to design earthquake resistant structures. An absorbing 4 hour evening session in which students could visualize the model and do the analysis, thereby getting the real feel of the subject. At the end the students were given the software and materials for future reference.

ROCKET LAUNCH

LIE DETECTOR

This workshop was conducted by Xovian for the first time in India and is one of its kind. A total of 90 groups had registered for the workshop. They were divided into 3 batches of roughly 30 groups each. On each day save the day 0 two groups attended the workshop with one group having their theoretical session and the other having a hands on session. Each group comprised of 4 to 5 students. The objective of the first day was to familiarize the groups with the modules of satellite and provide them with a background of this rather obscure field of satellites. Day 0 began with a theoretical session on- the essential components in a satellite, various modules making up a satellite. The physics behind the launch of a satellite was discussed. Also the safety factors for safe launch of satellite into the orbit like radiation protection, air drag reduction, design aspects etc were discussed. Organisers also shared some facts about the working of NASA and ISRO. This was followed by a brainstorming session in which

It was conducted in collaboration with Truth Labs India, our countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s No.1 Forensic Science Laboratory. The event saw them explaining the concept of the Polygraph, or in common jargon, the lie detector. Over 220 students participated in the workshop split into two batches. The workshop mostly hovered over the exploitation of human psychology and also the common ways people use to deceive others, ranging from forging signatureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to professional con artists. The machine Lafyattle was experimentally demonstrated and reading techniques of the polygraph was taught. The feedback from the participants was encouraging as most of them felt that the event was informative and out of the mainstream.

participants were asked to come up with their own models of (on paper) satellite. The groups were then provided with their kits and the circuit to be made was explained to them. The next day i.e. Day 1 they soldered these components onto the PCB .These were then mounted on the launch vehicle and launched from the terrace of Science Block. The satellites were separated from the launch vehicle at a height of nearly 300 mts. The satellite had pressure sensors onboard which opened the parachute when the pressure reached the set level. The satellites were landed with the help of parachute. Similar sessions were conducted for the other batches on day 2 and day 3.The feedback from the participants was overwhelming.

Workshops

SOLAR CHARGER

BIG DATA

This six hour workshop conducted by Robovarsity (an IIT Kanpur based start-up) saw nearly 77 registrations for teams of five each split into three batches of 27, 26 and 24 respectively across the dates March 7th, 8th and 9th. At the end of the workshop, participants were able to develop a mobile charger which could charge phones without any electricity, merely by the presence of sunlight. A blend of electronics and renewable energy was packaged to the students as a highly appealing workshop.

This workshop was conducted in partnership with Microsoft, by its gold partners Koenig Solutions Ltd... This was one of the first workshops of this kind which enlightened the participants on handling humongous amount of data with the help of Hadoop software. With lots of Data Analytics opportunities coming up in the Job Market, the participants found the workshop highly useful. It was indeed the need of the hour. The workshop had a participation of around 220 spread across all the 3 days of Pragyan.

Distributed computing through Java. This was a 4 hour workshop conducted on March 9th, 2014 in batches of two. It attracted around 200 participants across all disciplines. The workshop was conducted by a special initiative of IBM called “IBM India University Relations”. The content of the workshop was highly comprehendible to all and covered the basics of the vital topic –“Distributed Computing” which is highly vital and booming in the IT industries today.

QUADCOPTER

FINANCE

ROBOTICS

This workshop was conducted by the apt organizers, the pioneers in the market – Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The participants were taught the different methods of risk analysis and simulations in the stock market. The workshop was conducted on March 7th, 2014 and saw a participation of around 100 students. The participants claimed the workshop to be an eye opener in terms of risks, investments and financial undertakings that they would be doing in future.

The PC, Internet and Speech controlled bot building workshop went on throughout the duration of Pragyan. It started at 9 am on day 0 and came to a conclusion at 5pm on day 3 of Pragyan.The workshop saw 105 teams over the course of 4 days. Each team consisted of 5 participants; over 500 students from different colleges got the chance to experience this unique workshop. The organizers were the Bangalore based Company, RoboGenesis. The morning sessions of the workshops consisted of the theory and in the afternoon sessions the students got hands on experience with the kits given by the organizers. The students enjoyed the sessions and were pleased with the outcome of the workshop. The top 2 teams from the workshop were given a chance to intern at RoboGenesis and an opportunity to represent Indian in I.N.S.P.I.R.E, a competition in South Korea.

This workshop was conducted by Robofission Labs in association with Techkriti, IIT Kanpur. The Quad copter that was featured in the movie “3 idiots” was seen working and live made and operated by all the participants. There was an overwhelming participation of 80 teams (4 members each) across all the 3 days. All the 80 quad copters were completely fit and working, the workshop overall was a highly successful one.

IBM

Interview

Q : How is Workshops’14 edition different from last year’s? A: Last year we had only eight workshops. This year almost all workshops were completely new. In fact big data and satellite launching were something which is held for first time in any of the tech fest. This year we also introduced two short workshops – lie detector workshop and IBM workshopjob perspective and how to tackle job interviews. This is mainly for people who come down here, so that they can participate in some workshops. Outreach workshops were a huge success this time.’ Hats off to publicity team’ without them outreach workshops would have been nothing. Rakesh and Ajay deserve special mention. Q : Can you tell us about the contribution of alumni towards workshops’14? A :Alumni were always a source of inspiration for us. Whatever problems we had, they were there to help us. They guided us on how to negotiate with organisers. They were also instrumental in bringing IBM to Pragyan’14. IBM have program called India University Relations, in which presently they have tie-ups with IITs only. With the help of NITT Alumnus we were able to use this program and bring IBM to Trichy.I will remember for a long time. The chance to mentor juniors was also an experience to cherish. 59

Archive 2014

Workshops Team With - Nikhil

Q :How lucky do you consider yourself to lead Workshops team in Pragyan A: This we would say is the most memorable thing in our entire college life. College life without workshop team would have been horrible. You get to learn and teach many things. . We were always like a discussion module. We really had a good team bonding. Q :Can you tell us a few words about your juniors? A :All the juniors were so enthusiastic, active, and cooperative; never give an excuse and full of ideas. Mostly it does like will be listening to their ideas. They all are really smart. We were sure they will be able to manage Workshops team well next year. Where all possible we will be there to guide them. Even well before Pragyan they used to work for 12 hours a day Q :how would you scale the progression of Pragyan over the last three years? A : As far as workshops are concerned, it has been huge. When I was in second year we had only 4 workshops with around 1500 participants. In 2012, we had 8 workshops with around 2000 participants. This year we had 9 workshops with around 2500+ participants. Profit almost tripled in 3 years. Surely workshops as team have been doing a good job over last 3 years and improving a lot.

Interview

Q : What is the hardest part of your job being the head of workshops team? A: As head of workshops team I really didn’t feet any part of my job difficult, as my juniors had done a fantastic job. One thing is that this time we had lots of registrations. We were planning to cancel some registrations. But due to I-collect we couldn’t do so. So we had to start on day zero morning. That part was really a difficult one as we had to go for admin permissions, had to convince pr people to start registrations early. Arranging accommodation for people who came on day minus one especially for girls was a bit difficult one. Q : What are all the problems workshops team faced in Pragyan’14? A : Venues were really far this time. We had two workshops in architecture dept, some in science block; some in LHC .Roaming around was a bit tiring. There was no proper water supply or power supply in science block. Handling 200+ participants was a bit difficult for us.PR hospitality really helped us a lot. Also the payment method was new to us. Reimbursing the amount was little bit tough. Q: Do you think there should be any major change in the way workshops are conducted? A : Whatever we had this year is ideal. It would be good if the venues could be closer. This year we had a lot of registrations. So we had to start the workshops on day zero. I think it will be better to close registrations well before so that proper arrangements can be made. Q: What is pragyan to all of you ? A : Pragyan is EMOTION to us

Archive 2014

Sangam PRAGYAN is not just a showcase of what the world of technology has to offer us nor is it about intense competitions, mind boggling lectures and enlightening workshops. It also encourages the students to apply their basics that they have learnt and to think out of the box. SANGAM is an initiative that encourages the top brains to churn out fresh ideas and innovations.

Projects : Portable ECG Machine with Real Time Signal Srivignessh Pss

Vignesh K

Vignesh M

Vignesh T

Design of a low cost source meter - K. Harish Tribalt - Vrindaa Somjit Prasanth Murali Tejaswini Kunduru Coanda effect flying saucer P. Aruvi Prashanth Srinivasan AyshaWafa RC Para Glider

- Sai Kiran

Siddharth Ravi

Solar Tracking with automated light detection and intensity regulation Dipin SP Nikhil M S Girish Kumar Kekule Snake bot Sripad Krishna Ramitha Sundar Vimalesh Chakradhar Reddy Smart Home G.V.Subashree Under water robot Rohit

Gayatri Sivaraman Niveditha Hariharan Prajval Kumar Deepak Sridhar

Bascule Bridges Ayushi Tiwari

Aayush garg Amit Sharma

Smart Watch Pranav Girish Kumar Sattanaathan Hexabot - Haresh Miriyala Akshay.P. Roy Mohan.C Sriram Chandrasekran 61

Archive 2014

Interview

Pankaj Raghav Q : How has your experience withPragyan ? A: ) Had a good learning experience about team work, leadership and critical decision making. The best part is Pragyan is a student run fest which made working fun throughout. It gives sole responsibility for the head to take decisions thereby preparing them for the corporate world. Q : What made you join Sangam? A: I was the winner of Sangam 2012 and right from that time I liked the concept of Sangam. There was a part of me which wanted to improve Sangam and take it to the next level. Q : WHow has Pragyan developed in your time here? A:Pragyan has developed into a much better fest over the years. Its outreach program, PSR initiatives, number of events, etc is now bigger and better. The development is clearly evident from the number of sponsors and from the footfall we see every year.

Head-Sangam

with - Varun

Q : What is the best part of Pragyan? A : The best part I like about the Pragyan is its professionalism. Everything is done professionally and quality is monitored throughout the fest. Q: What were the challenges you personally faced working for Sangam? A: I had many responsibilities as the head of Sangam. As Sangam was a new entry which is just 2 years old many people didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know about it. First challenge was to publicize about Sangam throughout the college. As it involves doing a project the publicity has to be done at least 6 months earlier. After that shortlisting was the next big challenge as all the deserving candidates should not be missed out. This was followed by series of reviews and ultimately followed by displaying at Pragyan. It was an enriching experience overall that too with lot of distinguished people and various media channel people coming to see the projects displayed

Interviews

THE TEAM

THAT MADE IT HAPPEN Rahul Ajith Kumar Chair person Mechanical Engineering

Rahul AjithKumar- Chair person : Explainabout aboutyour your journey journey in QQ: Explain in Pragyan? Pragyan? A : In the year 2012 I saw the inductions for Pragyan. I was interested in publicity and after the briefing I was interested QAOS. I went on to join the QAOS team.In my second year I went for an internal auditor training in Dubai.Then in myyour third journey year I was through one of the internal Q : How has Pragauditors for Pragyan. Also I had a lot of flexibility, as the yan been? head Kaushik Reddy gave me freedom in handling the work,taking careour of juniors. I always wanted to be We the A: Initially, team faced many difficulties. headhadn’t of QA.achieved But I was fortunate enoughbut to be the chairmany converts; eventually, man.with support from the core and with efforts from the juniors, we managed to put up a very good Q show :You during were Pragyan. a part of Festember publicity

team, what made you chose Pragyan?

Q : What do you think was the leap from Pragyan tobut Pragyan ’14? to know the work A : Publicity was’13 fun, I was curious

done in QA. In my second year as a part of QA I was A : Talking Pragyan as a work. whole,Only I think involved in a lotabout of documentation afterPramy gyan has its root spread far and wide with its outinternal auditing training did I understand what the reach events.actually Also, Pragyan is important in the documentation meant. ’14 After that the curiosity timeline – it’s become this time. to know more about it andinternational the lovely batch of juniors With regard to the Exhibitions Team, we have made me stay with QA. Infact I think it is one of thedefibest nitely become bigger and better this time. Some decisions. -- of the guests this time had also participated in ’12. They were all praises for better orgaQPragyan :What were your plans increase the reach nization andof greater footfall time. One of them Pragyan in this NITT? ran out of pamphlets; Apart from great footfall, Pragyanour ’14college had ‘active’ participants; it witnessed A : Though is a technical institute it is very greater involvement from the student fraternity difficult to reach out to all the students and make them greater satisfaction from guests. stayand for Pragyan. Our plan was to the involve firstPragyan years in ’14, in many ourwould expectations. some way or theways, other.has Wesurpassed thought this increase the quality of participation from our college in the long Were there major glitches durrun.QWe: had events likeany Pragyan campus connect, and ing the event something that you would a few events in LHC. I think these events boosted the want your team toyears. correct in participation among first Pragyan ’15?

Q :Which core member impressed you?

A: There were no major problems this time. Everything was When planned ahead in time, and A : Somnath. wewell were announced thatexecutwe are ed systematically. going be the executive core, I thought that I had to do

most of the work for obvious reasons. Only after I started working with him did I realise the kind of knowledge Q :4. Which is the most memorable expehe has about Pragyan. He worked a lot throughout the rience you have had in Pragyan ‘14? year. He was the one who made Pragyan possible. In the year 2012 I saw the inductions for Pragyan. I was A: Every moment and I spent Pragyan I has interested in publicity afterwith the briefing wasbeen intermemorable. The most memorable incident would ested QAOS. I went on to join the QAOS team.In my secthe appreciation our team had received from ondbe year I went for an internal auditor training in Dubai. Though was this string Thenthe in Director my third himself. year I was one ofthere the internal

WITH

Sivaprakasam

Q : What was your most memorable moment in Pargyan? A : Day 3 of Pragyan. When everything was finally over, when you planned so many things for one year and you see everything attached done thatabout was most memorable one. All of nervousness the success of the the ideas you had were implemented andwhat you we feel event, we were thoroughly satisfied with happy about it.AsIt we wasare nostalgic. had achieved. not part of the Pragyan Core, we do not receive sufficient recognition. Q has : Why didoverwhelming you have a secretary? But, there been response and appreciation for the Exhibitions Team this time. I A : I always enjoyed workingforwith think this is very memorable me.my juniors. The fact that I could not interact with juniors disappointed me. It was my previous head who gave the idea of having a secretary.So I took a QA junior as my secretary. It was fun having him as secretary because he used to relieve my stress and getting my works done.

Q : Things which you feel should be added to next edition of Pragyan? A : I felt that we had spent a lot of time in the planning stage. Instead we should have started working much earlier. Q:Who is your favourite core member? Why?

Q :You have been a part of NCC, Festember publicity, PSI racing andPragyan QA. Which one A :Saarangan and Muthu are two people I should is the closest to you? definitely mention. They have been of tremendous support to the Exhibitions Team. We had very A : Allguests the teams and clubs I have been part of are good coming downthat to Pragyan thisa time, almost like to me,for butSaarangan, I don’t think I would agreed. Hada itfamily not been the stalls have come thishave far ifbeen it waspresented not for NCC. wouldn’t so well. Muthu has been very patient and put up with me even when Q: Your to about the next Chairperson? I have beenadvice annoyed issues with the electrical supply. A : No matter whatever happens HE/SHE never lose her calm. Q:should Favourite juniors? A : There’s no particular favourite junior. I like all of them; everybody has put in a great deal of effort and has worked really well to pull this off. Q:What does Pragyan mean to you? A :+Pragyan has earned me a lot of friends; be it my batch mates or juniors. Without Pragyan, I wouldn’t have known these many faces in NITT. Archive 2014

Anirudh Rajaseshan - QA Head WITH

QA Team

Q : Explain your journey to QA Head. A : I tried FMT in first year but since I was a part of Thespian society I couldn’t join FMT. After that I joined Festember OC and I worked in it. But I never got that connect with Festember. : How has your through PragI wasQattracted towards QAjourney by the Madhan’s Quote” QA yan been? is the team that pokes your noses in everyone else’s affairs”. Also I liked the whole concept of ISO. Moreover ourthey team faced many that A: wasInitially, the year were going to difficulties. go for the We ISO hadn’t achieved many converts; but eventually, certification. I had prior knowledge about ISO since my with fromauditor. the core and to with effortsthe from father wassupport an internal I went become intheauditor juniors, putthings up a fell veryingood ternal in we my managed third year. to Then place during Pragyan. and show I became head of QA team. : What think was the leap from QQ :What is do theyou work of QA team? Pragyan ’13 to Pragyan ’14?

A : Before Pragyan our team has to maintain records of A : Talking about Pragyan as a whole, I think Prathe planning stages. We also have to facilitate the ingyan has its root spread far and wide with its outternal auditing and external auditing. During Pragyan reach events. Also, Pragyan ’14 is important in the we record everything that happens like number particitimeline – it’s become international this time. pants for each event, problems faced and collect feedWith regard to the Exhibitions Team, we have defiback from participants. After Pragyan we compile and nitely become bigger and better this time. Some analyse the feedback given. Our primary aim is continof the guests this time had also participated in ual improvement. We also make an archive consisting Pragyan ’12. They were all praises for better orgaof every event and highlights that took place and internization and greater footfall this time. One of them views of the heads of all teams of Pragyan. ran out of pamphlets; Apart from great footfall, decisions. Pragyan ’14 had ‘active’ participants; it witnessed -greater involvement from the student fraternity Qand :What do you think about theguests. bonding in greater satisfaction from the Pragyan the core team? ’14, in many ways, has surpassed our expectations. A : It was a very comfortable team to work with. We had Q : Were there any major glitches durvery few fights in the Core when compared to the preing the event - something that you would vious Core. Also it was comfortable to work those set want your team to correct in of people. We know each other personally, I think it’s Pragyan ’15? ‘friends’ most time than core members. We are almost like a family now. A: There were no major problems this time. Everywas planned well in time, and executQ thing :What problems didahead you face in Pragyan? ed systematically. A : I did not have many problems really. We were trying to do everything in scheduled manner. So we did not Q :4. Which is the most memorable expefind much difficulties. We had a lot of problems in APP rience you have had in Pragyan ‘14? module last year.With the help of CSG Team we had to do a new module as compared to last year. One thing A: Every moment I spent with Pragyan has been is the food coupon distribution .We couldn’t do it as memorable. The most memorable incident would planned as the printing got late. be the appreciation our team had received from the Director himself. Though there was this string

of nervousness attached about the success of the event, we were thoroughly satisfied with what we had achieved. As we are not part of the Pragyan Core, we do not receive sufficient recognition. But, there has been overwhelming response and appreciation for the Exhibitions Team this time. I think this is very memorable for me.taken to create Q :What were the measures

impact among first years about pragyan?

A : We organised ‘Campus connect’ for making first years familiar with Pragyan. We planned some events for first years as pre-pragyan to encourage the first year’s participation. It had Sanrachna, Reverse Engineering, Pragyan Main quiz to increase enthusiasm among students. ‘Crime Busters’ as every year saw huge participation from first years. I think the participation by first years has relatively improved lot over the past years. Also for briefing among first year hostels, we used projectors and audio systems for PowerPoint presentations. I think Q:Who yourimpact favourite member? we madeisa good among core first year’s this year. Why?

Q : What is your advice to the next head?

A :Saarangan and Muthu two people I should : I am very fortunate toare have the best batch of third definitely mention. They have been of tremenand second years. My advice to next head will be to dous tostrong the Exhibitions We had keepsupport this team and workTeam. together. Thevery bonding good guests coming to Pragyan this time, we have among us is down the reason that made QA one of agreed. HadinitPragyan. not been for Saarangan, the stalls best teams wouldn’t have been presented so well. Muthu has Q :What improvements would to see been very patient and put up with me you evenlike when in next about edition of pragyan? I have been annoyed issues with the electrical supply. A : Increase in number of outreach events, ImplemenQ: Favourite tation of morejuniors? innovative ideas, solving campus problems. Talking from quality perspective I want to extend AQA : There’s no particular I like allsangam of to workshops, guestfavourite lectures, junior. Infotainment, them; everybody has put in a great deal of effort and exhibitions. and has worked really well to pull this off.

Q: Your favourite members in the Core Team?

Q:What does Pragyan mean to you? A : Rahul, Rakesh and Ajay A :+Pragyan has earned me a lot of friends; be it my batch mates or juniors. Without Pragyan, I wouldn’t have known these many faces in NITT. Archive 2014

Interview

Q: Explain the role of Pragyan Treasurer. A: Being the Treasurer of Pragyan, there are two sides of work to my part. Since I am part of the Executive Core, there is lot of decision making work, this all goes into what should happen with Pragyan. Apart from that, treasury is exclusively involved in budgeting entire Pragyan. I with my team have to decide on the budget of each team, analyze last year’s budget and then going for the next year’s budget based on the plans of the Core Team. Q: When did your work effectively start? A :It started right from the point the core got inducted. When the seniors finalized the core it was not officially announced by the Admin. So, we had to go through long official procedures before we could get the approval from the Admin. Our first task as the executive core was to organize the Pragyan’13 Treat. 3) Can you give me some insight into your journey to the Treasurer of Pragyan. A: I was a part of PMT in my third year and I was assigned to the Treasury during Pragyan’13. I worked under Treasurer of Pragyan’13 Sashikanth. Unfortunately, I had to attend a conference in Bangalore during the first two days of Pragyan’13. Since Treasury work is very sensitive, I was pushed off 67

Archive 2014

Priyanka-Treasurer

With - Sushmitha

to a lighter Events Team. After I came back I was helping help Shashikanth with Treasury work. Almost the same time previous year I got nominated for the Treasurer post and I had no clue about my nomination. I always wanted to be in the core and I did build my profile in such a manner so that I can eventually see myself in core, but I thought I wouldn’t make it since I had missed the crucial two days of Pragyan’13. My contribution to marketing was one of my biggest advantage because of the my Tata Steel convert. My experience in Shrishti and work in other clubs were noticed by the seniors. It took a long time for the Executive Core of Pragyan’13 to come up with a decision. The seniors took us out for breakfast in BHEL after telling us of the result. Q: How was your bonding with core members? A : The Core did not know each other very well in the beginning. But it was just a matter of time before we got close. The best part about our core was that we bonded really fast even though we knew very little about each other. The previous team had lot of issues when it came to bonding with each other. There was initial friction and then the Executive Core had to make sure that the entire core falls into place. AS for as the Executive Core is considered, managing and coordinating wasn’t a difficult task. We had very small glitches, small problems during Pragyan and before Pragyan little differences, clashes, but that is required because unless there is a clash of interests, a good thing won’t come up. Somnath had the experience of

Interview

working in different teams. Because of this, he knows things more than anybody else. That was the biggest advantage for the 3 of us.He was the knowledge base, he had experience, we had ideas. It just happened and all that fell in place. Q: What were the major innovations by the Treasury this Pragyan? A: This Pragyan we actually tried a lot of things. With respect to treasury we had introduced Net Banking and i-Collect. Usually for workshop registrations, we have DD submissions. This meant a lot of DDs in the order 1000s.us It was very hard to handle them and Q:ofTell about your journey compile and it was always sure that some DDs intothem Pragyan. get lost. The Net Banking option was just to review the transactions Since the A: I steppedonline. into Pragyan as Pragyan a Media account rela- is jointtions account held by thethird Treasurer and Staff Advisor manager in my year.This was my of Pragyan, we can’t do online transactions through first experience being a part of Pragyan. Net It Banking. this proved to be very helpful was theStill best experience a person couldsince instead to the bankaswith the passbook get. of Mygoing job description a media man- to get ager the transaction details (needed and often by the was to contact companies turn PMTthem to check sponsor transactions), I could sit in into converts. It was a big challenge, my room and check the transaction online. but I managed to pull it off very well.Opening Afi-Collect for payments reduced theenthusiasm, number of DDs ter seeing my dedication and we received. approval for i-Collect my head The decided to leave the teamwas to not me. easy. The Iprocedures were long. Webetter started working couldn’t see my very life get any when on itshe from November i-Collect asked me to but leadthe the Media account relationscould get team opened only on 13th Febuary. for Pragyan 14.

Q: What will be your advice to the next Treasurer? A: There are loads of advice I want to give to the next Treasurer. I felt that the Executive Core was a little too soft with Teams when they come up with their issues. What teams don’t understand is that the team’s perspective is very narrow and 3 of us have a bigger and different perspective because of the position where we stand. The next Treasurer should be strong with his/her opinion and come out straight with his/her decision. Q: Can you tell me about the juniors you worked with?

Vaibhav - Content

A: I had more juniors to work than the Treasurer of Pragyan’13. It eased up my work towards the end. All the juniors I had were from different teams, but still Q: Could you tellasus about team? How to managed to work a Team. Theyour Treasury is supposed was in due leading a team? beyour a veryexperience close team. But to certain circumstances, I had to increase the number of juniors working under A: Last me. year it was a group of 11 and this year our family has become a 22 member family. We have highly talented people in was our team. Considering the given time span Q: How your experience working with andthe the Core? challenges they faced, they managed to pull off a great job. I learnt a lot from my team. The second years didA:a The great job Core takingis into their experience and entire very fact fun to work with. I just can’t knowledge. second years didI an amazing job andthe get boredThe working with them. never felt like I was wasonly helping in every possible way.feel I couldn’t have girl. They never made me that I am theasked only girl for in a better team. the core.

With - Tharoon

Q: What were some of the glitches during Q: What is your work before, Q: Q What are the problems faced by your Pragyan’14? : Most memorable moment: during and after Pragyan? team? The Aparticipants of Robovigyan had some issues. A: The most memorable moment for me would be the :A: For us, our work is before Pragyan. they comeI to festmore is We We hadbasically Texas Instruments as portfolios our associate Shrishti -2journalists workshopwhen in Hyderabad. gotsee tothe know handled four – On-spon- A : Handling of thethe biggest problems. Catering to theirthe demands sors.line They sponsored us kits and cash.and They wanted oneabout Core personally. I cannot forget time I had websites, Radio, Television Print andspent taking care of their Itneeds is afirst veryoutreach sensitiveevent. issue. theirmedia. kits to be in all the events of Robovigyan with Somnath. was our Ourused understanding with online cluster. We sent theseisthe TI kitsPublicity. to each and website partners Mutual Theyevery The way we handle them reflects directly on what goes participant who enrolled, who just registered for the into the books and we don’t want to be the on the bad needed to do write ups about Pragyan in event willwebsites, the last publicise week of Pragyan.In most itof the page. Every junior was assigned to a journalist and they their and try to make Robovigyan events, the participants already reach as far as possible. In return we put upmade had to go through to a lot. It is also very difficult to deny theirthe robots and they would be using the same for their demands directly. We also did not receive proper company as our partners on website all Techfests. The participants could notwe afford and banners. With Radio partners try toto dis- media coverage for the Outreach events this year. There mantle the old bots and use the TI kits. That fulfil their requirements and in return theywas a was no proper response from the Media personnel from other cities. There was nothing much we could do about huge setback and because of that and our participation played jingles about Pragyan give RJ it due to time constraints. wasupdates affected.inYou don’t see free their live often channels. Withcomponents televibeing given in Techfest of the comparticipasion and print media,regardless we have people tioning of those the event. Also, some of over registered from the for respective companies the TI kits that were distributed did not work. during the four days to cover Pragyan.

Archive 2014

Interview

Zayn Alam Head - Sponsorships

Q: Can you tell us about your work before, after and during Pragyan? A:Before Pragyan we started working during the holidays both with the core team and the marketing team. And for the Dubai outreach event were planning on it for about 6 months. Just for that 6 hours of event, we spent so much time and it was a great success. So it was easily a year back. Till the end of Pragyan and even after that, till we pass out, our work will continue. And even after we leave this institution Pragyan means a lot to us and we will I didn’t get to see much of Pragyan actually because we were involved with the team and the core and sorting things out. Mostly my work was just restricted to the ad-

min and the food stalls. But the work experience was brilliant. We had to plan a lot of things out for Pragyan and this being my final year and finally getting to lead a team for once. It was amazing working with everyone. Q:Tell us something about Pragyan Marketing Team. A:All the 17 of my juniors in PMT team are brilliant. Each of them in whatever way possible, have contributed lots to Pragyan. Each of their contributions has led to making (at least from the marketing side) what Pragyan and PMT is today. We have worked throughout the year and that has given us the chance to bond very deeply among ourselves. It’s been a wonderful experience with them. I will miss them. Q: What is your most memorable moment in Pragyan?

Rishikesh

WITH

A: Memorable would be the video our juniors made for us. After Pragyan got over they planned a surprise for us. It was on the day 3 of Pragyan at 3.30 in the morning. We thought it would be some cake or maybe all our friends would be invited. Our PMT juniors actually went around to all our friends, both mine and Abhinav and made a video compilation which had what each of our friends and everyone in the team had to tell about us and how people would remember us by. It was really funny and touched us. We never expected anything of that sorts. Our seniors who had come to this year’s Pragyan were also made to say a few words about us. That was the most memorable moment for me. Q:Did u have a target for PMT? Did u achieve it? A: We never had a target in mind, we needed to think only that we had to exceed ourselves or rather our last year’s achievements. And we definitely did that. The aim was just a motivation for us.

Q: What would u like to tell your next PMT batch of juniors? A : The first thing that I will tell them is that things are going to work out in the end. Even if things are going bad or out of track I’ll tell them not to worry, to wait it out. The phrase “Things are going to work out” was given to us when we joined the team and like clockwork it worked for us and I am sure it will work the same for the next batches to come too. Q :Any changes that you would like to see in next year’s Pragyan? A : The organisational structure of Pragyan is beyond the standards of a student maintained organisation. The only change I would like to see is getting down more seniors for Pragyan and maybe have a full alumni gathering. We tried implementing it this year, being a decade of Pragyan but then we didn’t give enough time for them to plan their visit so not many could come down this year. Next year I would like to see a huge number on that. We have 10 years of alumni. Getting all of them down would be very nice and it would be one entire emotional gathering.

Interview

Somnath Amancherla Overall co-ordinator

Q: Can you give us an insight into your journey to Overall Coordinator of Pragyan’14? A:After witnessing Festember in my first year I enjoyed a lot and I was very desperate to get into some team. I got into Organizing Committee of Festember. After Festember got over, Pragyan Inductions came and my senior told me to apply for it. I got an offer from Pragyan OC, but I wanted to try something different. My first preference was PR and second preference was OC. They rejected me. I took the OC offer. After Pragyan 2012, I applied for PMT and got in. The best part of PMT was learning how to analyse things. I wasn’t exactly the marketing guy. I had

much smaller converts when compared to others in the team. During Pragyan, the work of Marketing Team is drastically reduced. So, I worked for the OC Team during Pragyan’13. I really liked working in my third year because you have a junior to work under you and a head to guide you. It was in my third year, the Guide to Trichy initiative was started. It was idea of the current treasurer Priyanka. After taking a lot of efforts we released it in February 2012. Q:How did you come to know that you were part of the Executive Core of Pragyan’14? A:After Pragyan’13, Neeraj Sangvi used to call me for giving the left over work. One day he called me to meet him. Only when I met him did I come to know that he had called me for Overall Coordinator of Pragyan’14 Interview. One day, I was called at 6’o clock in the morning to the Admin Block

Chandran

WITH

by Neeraj Sanghvi. I saw Priyanka and Rahul waiting near the Admin Block. It was then obvious to me that we were the Executive Core. After that they took us to BHEL for breakfast and explained about how things work in the Admin. Our first task as the Executive Core was Pragyan’13 Treat. After lot of constraints we finally pulled it off. Q: What is your work as the Overall Coordinator of Pragyan’14? A: My prime responsibility as overall coordinator was to serve as a bridge between different teams. I am responsible for the welfare of all the teams. I had an idea of improving participation from within the college. Q:What are some of the new initiatives in Pragyan’14? A: Bar code scanner was also one of the best ideas which we got from our brainstorming. . The admin liked it a lot, and they even used it for mess registration. This helped us

the admin. We shifted footstalls to old tennis court, and Sangam and Exhibitions to outside barn. Also, we convinced the Nittro event manager to conduct the event behind ATM. We had an online portal (SBI-I collect) for registering for Workshops. This reduced a lot of our paper work. Q: what are some of the problems you faced during Pragyanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;14? A : The major problems we faced were because of the huge number of Workshops we had this time. The registrations were very high for the workshops. So allocation of venue for various workshops was very difficult. Also we had problems in having proper time schedule. We got science block building, but the building was new and there were no furniture. So we had to shift 150 benches from computer science department to science block department. We had an excellent panel for the Crossfire but two withdrew because of political issues. T-shirt tender was again a very big problem. Q :Who are your favourite Core Members? A : Abhinav, Priyanka and Rahul. Q :Your advice to next overall coordinator A: Concentrate more on highlights and maintain good relations with the highlights team.

Our first discussion with the Admin after we go approval of the core was about outreach events. We had more people in our core team from gulf. So, we planned for on international event. We somehow managed to find a venue in Dubai at a subsidised price. We also managed to find a few sponsors for lunch and other refreshments. That was the first international event by Pragyan. After that we were brainstorming on outreach events which can be conducted. We wanted to conduct workshops for school children. So, we conducted a workshop on basic sciences to the under privileged students in collaboration with 3D club and PSR. We also had an RMI workshop for school children in our campus. We collaborated with Google Devolopers group of NIT Trichy and conducted a one day workshop on how to create an app. Our next event was Shristhi workshop. When the team was planning for event in Dubai, the rest of the team was planning for Shristhi in India. We targeted Hyderabad as it had a good number of engineering colleges. We started publicity very early after the semester vacations started. We had a tie up with CBIT, one of the best colleges in Hyderabad. We had slight doubts on the participation. Our major problems were collecting payment from the participants. The participants were extremely satisfied and we had a registration of 40 teams. The event was a huge success Our next event was Pragathi. We got TI as our sponsor and after the success of Shristhi we planned to conduct Pragathi in Kerela. We had a very good response in Kerela and the event was a very god success.

Q :Can you tell us about the Outreach events of Pragyanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;14? A: We had Pragyan Campus Connect which was an initiative by Sagar Varma, the former Marketing Head. I had an idea to create impact about Pragyan. We felt that inculcating interest among students in their first year will improve the participation in the forthcoming years. Also it would involve quality of participation. So, we felicitated all the department opening rank students with Pragyan mementoes and goodies. Our next initiative was a Free Laptop Service Drive in our college in association with Checkbox. We had a huge turnout

Interview

Srijith Mohan Q:you took pragyan to a whole new level ,Tell us about the theme. A: ) This time i chose Steampunk as the theme, it basically didn’t any have meaning conveyed but it was a great hit. Last time around the metro theme was only limited to the website, this time i was given the choice to have a theme of my own just as festember. Q: How was it to lead a team on your own ? A:This is the first time, design is added into the core position. I am thankful for that , it led me put my ideas with no restrictions. Last year i saw what my head was going through, mere slavery i would say. This time it was a whole new experience. Q:What would chose as the most difficult task during the fest ? A: Managing Juniors! Q: One moment that you wont forget about Pragyan 14 . A: Inauguration didn’t have a backdrop. Last year when i saw my backdrop being

Head-Design

with - Shrimithran

gazed at by a mass crowd, i felt special. This year it was a big let down. It would go as a bitter memory of Pragyan. Q: Can you name any junior whose work was very notable ? A: Two people actually, Kapil Aiyer and Julian Arnold Q: Apart from design, what would you like to change or add to make pragyan 15 better ? A: More quality workshops. Number shouldn’t matter. Even 2-3 quality workshops would do because this is something that you are doing for the poeple. And apart from that , going truly international - something like an international robotics event or anything of that levels. Q: Message to the next design team. A: Make it bigger. Q: Explain pragyan in one line. A : Stepping stone of success!

Exhibitions robots among others to made the crowd excited.

Gesture Research

RoboSoft systems Saying that a tech fest without some awesome robotics related stuff is a disappointment is not an overstatement. Pragyan appealed to the bot fanatic inside visitors by presenting a host of Robotics-related exhibits from Robosoft systems. Robosoft Systems is a privately owned company located in Mumbai, India and is known for its extensive Research and Development in the field of Embedded System Design, VLSI and Robotics since 2008. Their customers include stalwarts like Lenovo, Mahindra, Indian Navy, etc. This Pragyan, Robosoft systems exhibited various catchy products like QuadRotor, robotic arm, x-pod 74

Pragyanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;14 in association with Gesture Research India brought a revolutionary technology in motion sensing with Natural user Interface (NUI). Being one of the experts that offer solutions for Microsoft Kinect, Gesture Research is credited for excellence and expertise in developing motion sensing technologies. Right from interactive games to revolutionizing the use of motion sensing in various

fields, Gesture Research has developed many products. Among the programs exhibited were â&#x20AC;&#x153;Virtual Dressing Room which is the virtual Try-On system that allows visitors to see how clothes and accessories look

THe show stealer

Cycloid systems Pragyan’14 in association with Cycloid Systems presented the CSM1 3-D printer Weighing 12 kg and built of a stable but light weight chassis, it incorporates high precision trapezoidal screw for the real dimension along with precision shaft and linear ball bearing which make its operation user friendly. With a large printing envelope of 220x170x130 mm and a customizable nozzle it offers a printing thickness ranging from 0.1 to 0.3 mm. The high print speed of 55 mm/sec is achieved by using Polylactic Acid (PLA) and Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) as the printing materials.

Arun cameras:

“A picture says a thousand words”. . The camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity which can capture the This is a revolution moment like nothing in the analysis of else. Photographic prototypes. Instead cameras evolved of going directly from the camera for expensive obscura, and prototypes of continued to design, a 3-D change through printout of the many generations same serves the of photographic preliminary purpose. technology. . Be it a mobile cover This Pragyan to or plastic dolls and relive history Arun figures, the 3D Cameras brought a printer could make never seen before it all. collection of antique cameras to Pragyan. 752

Robogenesis The field of humanoids believes in growth through innovation. The visitors of this Pragyan witnessed the spectacle of growing technology and vast potential in the field of robotics. Robogenesis is a company which aims at providing quality technical education to engineering students in the field of robotics and embedded systems. They are nationally affiliated with various IITs and internationally renowned by Microsoft and Science Park, Korea. Robogenesis produces a horde of products such as the Surrogate, FB car, advanced vision systems, hacking Kinect, XNA gaming, computer security and Microsoft Robotics Developer studio (MSRDS). The exhibit by Robogenesis was a humanoid bot which was capable of multidirectional movements, weightlifting and performing miniature tasks.

Interview

VishnuPriya- Exhibitions

with - Lakshmi Manoharan Q : How has your journey through Pragyan been? A: Initially, our team faced many difficulties. We hadn’t achieved many converts; but eventually, with support from the core and with efforts from the juniors, we managed to put up a very good show during Pragyan.

Q : What do you think was the leap from Pragyan ’13 to Pragyan ’14? A : Talking about Pragyan as a whole, I think Pragyan has its root spread far and wide with its outreach events. Also, Pragyan ’14 is important in the timeline – it’s become international this time. With regard to the Exhibitions Team, we have definitely become bigger and better this time. Some of the guests this time had also participated in Pragyan ’12. They were all praises for better organization and greater footfall this time. One of them ran out of pamphlets; Apart from great footfall, Pragyan ’14 had ‘active’ participants; it witnessed greater involvement from the student fraternity and greater satisfaction from the guests. Pragyan ’14, in many ways, has surpassed our expectations. Q : Were there any major glitches during the event - something that you would want your team to correct in Pragyan ’15? A: There were no major problems this time. Everything was planned well ahead in time, and executed systematically. Q :4. Which is the most memorable experience you have had in Pragyan ‘14? A: Every moment I spent with Pragyan has been memorable. The most memorable incident would be the appreciation our team had received from the Director himself. Though there was this string

Q:Who is your favourite core member? Why? A :Saarangan and Muthu are two people I should definitely mention. They have been of tremendous support to the Exhibitions Team. We had very good guests coming down to Pragyan this time, agreed. Had it not been for Saarangan, the stalls wouldn’t have been presented so well. Muthu has been very patient and put up with me even when I have been annoyed about issues with the electrical supply. Q: Favourite juniors? A : There’s no particular favourite junior. I like all of them; everybody has put in a great deal of effort and has worked really well to pull this off. Q:What does Pragyan mean to you? A :Pragyan has earned me a lot of friends; be it my batch mates or juniors. Without Pragyan, I wouldn’t have known these many faces in NITT. If not for PrArchive 2014

Thanks To :

Srijith Mohan Pixelbug Contents team

Content Developers

Sivaprakasam Prabhu Nikhil Chandran

Shrimithran

Archive 2014

Archive 2014 is a complete report about Pragyan, in depth analysis about the event,workshops and other highlights with exclusive interviews of the core members of Pragyan 14. - An initiative by the Pragyan Quality Assurance Team. send us your feedback to pragyan.archive@gmail.com