Industry Defined Problem

That was junkyard wars which kept us busy the last three days of shaastra. but why did we go there in the first place?! coz we were selected for the final presentation for an event called IDP.. GE sponsored. we came third.. and GE gives summer internships at The GE John F. Welch Technology Centre, Bangalore. totally excited about it! waiting...
here's the pic of all three prize winners. first prize IITM. second.. a college from vizag. third.. BITS Pilani! standing amidst the panel of judges fro GE.
Now coming to the other teams.. abhinav 2nd year wins the first prize in Science Fiction writing competition. Civil guys 2nd year get a consolation 6th or 7th in Master builder. and Team Shona gets a consolation (4th place) in Fire n Ice.
Oh! and ya.. my wingies (siva, selp, terror, bile and lingam).. participated in Capture the Flag, a robotics event. made it almost till the semis. and a 2nd yearites team (gaurav, gaurang, anshul, gaurav gupta, manish) for the same event.. did pretty well, but not quite! a couple of second yearties (bineet and sartak) participate in coding events. good effort but again.. something missing!
Congrats to all the winners! and for those who missed it this time.. dont worry guys. this is just the first techfest.. you'll definitely rock in the ones to come. after all.. "participation is more important than winning right?!" but just that winning gets you slightly more appreciation! no worry.. stay always ready!
So BITS Pilani basically did pretty good in Shaastra 2K7! We Rocked! We'll keep rockin!

Chaloooo!!!

That pic was during the prize distribution ceremony of Junky yard wars. Bosch official sponsor. from left standing: Karteek, Ankur, me, Susheel and some Bosch guys!
Now video time! this is the trial run we'd taken with our 'Auto' (evident from its looks!) pucca chennai auto coz it doesnt have breaks! and thanks to karteek for that real professional video recording! esp towards the end!!

The next video is the best one! having done two main runs @12 sec and 11 sec, it was time for some action and adventure! attempting the world's greatest stunt of all times! (thats is, definitely, coz look whose pushing me!! Chaloo....!!)

Shortly after that..

Following that one was another nasty fall from our IIT counterparts! a bad one indeed! check out this NDTV coverage for more details.. http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/videopod/default.aspx
Search for Test Drive. you'll find the one for junkyard wars. i'm unable to download it completely. shall try to post it soon! Enjoy!

hindu article!

Well, IIT M techfest.. Shaastra was good. check out this article! (totally unexpected. we thought the reporter zubeda was some iit student who was generally asking us some questions! the next day's newspaper was really a shock! hehe!)

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Day Three of Shaastra: ingenius ideas abound

Zubeda Hamid
DREAM MACHINE: Students building a vehicle for a contest held as part of ‘Shaastra 2007’ at IIT-Madras in Chennai on Saturday.

CHENNAI: It was hard to imagine that anything in IIT Madras’s junkyard could actually be used. Backless chairs, mangled wheelbarrows and broken tube lights littered the area. Among the rubbish the organisers of ‘Junkyard Wars’ had scattered useful items: tyres (second hand) and metal rods. It was up to the six teams that qualified from over 400 to wade through the junk and look for things that would help build a vehicle.

‘Junkyard Wars’, one of the many competitions on Day Three of ‘Shaastra’, IIT Madras’s annual inter-collegiate technical festival, involved teams putting together a vehicle that could be manually operated. Once ready, the vehicles with the riders would have to pass under a stick held at three feet, navigate six turns and ride through a 50-metre course of road and sand.

“It wasn’t that difficult. We are used to this in college,” said G. Susheel, a student of BITS-Pilani, whose team has been working on the vehicle since Friday morning. Since the organisers supplied the teams with a moped engine, it was not very difficult, other students said. Finding the smaller part needed though, was a challenge, another team member A. Jaideep added.

Another event, ‘Master Builder’, saw students putting together a transmission line tower with sections of aluminium. Built over two-and-a-half days, the towers will be tested for both strength and cost-effectiveness.

“We received about 25 designs and selected the best 10 for the competition,” a ‘Shaastra’ volunteer said.

teacher!!

Well.. Blogging after a really long time!! not that i didnt find time for it!! just that i was too lazy for it or didnt have much stuff to write!! today however i thought i'd try and shed my lazyness and write something.. basically triggered from when i finished watching this movie.. rat-a-touille (what ever.. im sure i got the spelling wrong!!)
anyway.. the point is not the movie! i was really inspired by gusteav's belief.. "any one can cook!!" and the fact that a rat learns cooking makes it all the more interesting and inspiring.. so that kinda set me thinking (which doesnt happen usually, somehow this time it did!!)
afterall.. its not just with cooking its like that.. its true for every field you take.. i truly believe that every person has a lot of potential.. potential to excel in any field. may be that in some they may perform better than in others.. that buds basically from the interest they put into it.. but one thing is for sure.. there is no one who deserves to be called or call himself a 'loser'.
just because one does not succeed in his endeavour need not mean that he's not good at it.. and gives him no reason to put down himself in any way. as it goes.. practice makes a man perfect. that very rightly applies to life.. afterall.. you can never move forward if you keep thinking about what you've left behind or lost in life!! it might sometimes happen that no matter how many times you try, you still dont get it right.. well in that case, it might just be that you chose something that doesnt suit your attitude, or just that there's something missing in your effort.
but that raises another question.. how do you get that 'right thing' in life!? well, a tough question, but answerable. answerable if you are willing to take a simple risk call 'trying to answer it!' think im crapping!? may be.. but just read on.. (!! after all you've made it this long!!)
what i mean by that is, you just cant do everything in life perfectly the first time you do it. well if anyone you know has done that, he's the biggest loser in life!! coz he's just not experienced what life's got to offer him!! fortune favours the brave.. so try and be one.. you better start experimenting with life before it puts you to the test. keep your options open at all times.. and never hesitate to try something new.. afterall, the worst thing that could happen to you is what? failure?! big deal man!! you might find yourself in an embarrasing position this moment. and you think all that you've done towards that particular goal is worth nothing? and quit?! every tiny effort of yours, good or bad will be rewarded. its not fate as some might call it. to me its just another law of nature.. just like change is. so may be now you feel depressed.. fine.. be sad.. but let it not take its toll. in such times no one is your worst enemy than you yourself. so just beware!! it is such moments that shape your attitude towards life, shape your future.. treat them as gas refilling stations in your long journey towards your goal.. whatever it is. and NEVER ever give up. just as i said earlier, you might be in a very bad postition right now. but if you actually look at what the basic reason was, for your failure, its just gonna be another human!! so think about it.. is it worth paying attention to a 'someone' s dislike and give up your years of effort? please.. never!! its his position which gives him the right to dispose off your effort, or result. and that position is not gonna stay for long with him!! remember.. let it not be a person who judges your future.. you are the one whos living your life.. you make the decisions and you decide whats right and whats not. nothing wrong in seeking advice. but make the decision for yourself. do just what you feel is right. (obviously as long it doesnt cause any harm to any one.. that is definitely the constraint you are woking under.. and the only constraint!!)
let whatever you do be of some use, not just to yourself, but to someone in this world. may be someone you know.. may be a stranger.. thats not important.. you may earn a lot today. but is that what you want to be know as, after you? as a guy, (just another) whos earned so much..
or do you wanna be called The guy, helped so many people to come up in life? i'd chose the latter definitely.
opportunities are everything in this world. everything that you've learned, everything you've gained in life could go waste if that one instance, called the opportunity is not given. and they just dont come to you. you have to go towards them. and theres only one thing that stops you from doing that.. you!
this takes me to the last (!!!) thing i wanted to include in this blog. its not difficult to find this opportunity for you probably. the very fact that you're able to read this blog is because you've got something that so many are not able to. shall i call that comfort, to be very simple!? but there are a whole lot, who are still waiting for the right opportunity, to transform their lives. to improve their condition.. this is where the role of a teacher comes in. who would you point to, if i asked you who is responsible for your current position? for all the comfort tht you are at present enjoying?! you may point to so many, but ultimately, it reduces to that one person whos constant effort to provide you with a brighter future has payed off, whos given you everything you know right now.. thats a teacher. in somecases this may not be an outsider.. what im referring to as a teacher is, anyone whos taught you something in life, you could benefit from.
and thats the best thing that one could enjoy.. that only a teacher can.. that is, the pleasure of his/her students gain knowledge from her and go higher up in life. it not coz he/she couldnt get a job that they are teaching! not at all. they're sacrificing so much in their lives to help make yours better. thats one thing you definitely need to realise.
when i think about whos given me all the knowledge that im able to share with in the clubs i've started, it always boiled down to my parents first, and then my teachers. these teachers im referring to, may have taken various forms, some my school teachers themselves, some my parents, friends, relatives, seniors.. someone told me this.. "no matter how much construction technology progresses, ladders will always be there. without them nothing's gonna happen.. so are teachers." ya.. thats true.. teachers are like ladders.. we climb upon them for a brighter future, for a higher goal that we wanna achieve. they are just inevitable from this world or our lives.
alright.. having said all that, it may look as if i'm gonna take up teaching as my profession! but to be frank.. not at all!! atleast for now, though i may like it, i'm not going to do that! just like someone has pointed out in their comment, that money is important in life. i believe in that too.
but one thing's for sure, whatever job i might be doing, wherever i am, one thing i'll never hesitate to do or one thing i'd always do, is teaching..
thats my view. having read it, you decide yours!

here in college!

now here in college, things are really different! im in third yr now.. i've improved myself in electronics.. something which i've loved from my school days.. thanks to my sir Mr. Prakash babu.. he was the one who inspired me into all this stuff.. and in here.. it was Raghu.. in 5th yr when i was in my first.. it was nice working with him.. my first project.. in my first yr.. now that was a real cooool thing to do a project in the first yr itself.. (i didnt care abt it much though!) i worked with tejesh and shipra.. both, the then 3rd yrites.. it was a security system which sent the pic of the person who came to your house when you're out.. that was my first electronics project experience.. i became famous like that.. never thought i would though! i never thought there was anything abt me that ppl liked.. but following that techfest was a brochure signing session.. much like passing arnd a slam book (in this case a bunch of sheets) where ppl put in their thoughts abt you.. and there were praises.. literally.. saying that im the most down to earth person they'd ever met blah blah! it was nice to see all that! for once i had a proof that i was capable of something huge!(though i never underestimated my potentials till now, i guess!). that was APOGEE 2k5 my first bitsian techfest.. i'd also won a robotics competition then.. again.. that was cool for first yrite!
then in second yr.. my project was the hospbot.. a robot with features like line tracking capability, wireless video transmission using bluetooth and ability to take voice commands to move around the place.. that was my first experience with actual robot buliding.. and being the only guy to take care of the whole of hardware stuff, i learnt a lot about it.. the team comprised of me, the hardware, electronics and brain behind the idea(!!), sabari.. the software wizard.. rajagopal.. another software chap and a God at Maya vide animations! we really rocked the show that apogee.. APOGEE 2K6. though we didnt win any prize this time, we loved our bot.. and liked the way we had worked on it.. what ever modules we had thought of to implement, we had them ALL working.. for the right moment! the best part in our design was the simplicity of circuitry and bot design.. everything made from scrap.. literally everything from body to wheels! we love that concept!
it was after this that i got involved in the robotics lab of the college.. my first assignment.. to build a H bridge.. a task that the 3rd yrites were to able to complete themselves! i had done it in less than a week! (nothing great abt it.. just that the 3rd yrites who worked on it were too lazy!!)
with that.. the amt of stuff i learnt increased exponentially.. i started my own club.. the Robotics Club.. with about 30 members in it.. working hardcore.. though only 1 and a half semesters old, the response i got from my juniors (I yrites) was overwhelming! so much so that almost all projects done for APOGEE 2K7 were done by first yr students.. and most of them won prizes!
for the first time in my life, i realized how great my potentials were.. i could actually influence a whole gang of students into my area of interest! I loved that thought!
alright.. i actually wanted to write some serious stuff in this blog! but looks like i've bragged abt myself too much here! anyway.. it feels nice to read it myself!
hey.. one more thing.. anyone who needs some help in electronics. do feel free to contact me.. i'll try my best to help you out!

My first post!

well, never thot i'd ever blog! looks like its just another fact that i've realized about myself.. ya.. thats right! im in the phase of self realization! k.. i think thats too much of an exaggeration!
but i have this weird feeling.. looking at so many qualities in me that i've never seen before.. i hope there's a whole bunch of you out there who'd accept this!
i've always been a lonely person.. not that i didnt have anyone to take care of me.. i have a lovely mom, a coooool dad! and a ultra sweet brother! but one thing has always bothered me.. no one to call as my good friend.. those i've had, i was never able to decide if they were truly my friends or not.. i never was able to find that person, to whom i could say whatever i want to.. who'd understand me so perfectly.. just a perfect friend!
came across so many 'friends' did i.. till i met this guy in my 9th.. sai kiran (hey let me make myself clear.. im not a gay! neither is kiran!) we first met for our combined studies.. and slowly we became such thick friends.. so thick that we used to discuss about alllllll kinds of stuffF! i mean.. we shared such a nice understanding with each other.. everything from girl friends to sex! every damn topic.. i told him.. and so did he! we studied for our exams together.. the 10th board.. both of us did well.. and it was here that he also helped me out in my first 'love'!! i dont know if im justified in calling it one, comparing it with the more 'serious' relationships that i've had and have (ya.. supposedly!) but i just feeling like laughing when i think abt that 'love'!
anyway.. now kiran moved to a different school.. i continued in the same.. then new people.. new faces.. new crushes! it was good.. i enjoyed my life.. 11th and 12th were the parts of my life where i enjoyed my school life to the best! till then, being the first son, mom was a bit hesitant to sending me outside.. but then.. thanks to dad.. i got much more freedom in my 11th and more so in my 12th! i thought it was late then! but now i realize that i've got just the things i need at the right time! (i love my parents!).
there have been nights though.. when i cried myself to sleep.. one unforgettable night was the eve of my b'day! no one called me to wish me.. i didnt have such gr8 frnds.. but anyway.. you know.. i needed that feel good factor that some one really cares abt me! i just hate to see those groups which generally go around commenting.. cracking jokes n all..like crazy asses.. who earned all the attention.. not because they really deserved it.. not because i envied them; infact i had real good rapport with those guys.. they respected me n all.. but it was just that i felt it was all very fake. and i wasnt the only one who felt this way.. i had arnd 4 or 5 more frnds who felt the same way too.. that was consoling! we decided not to go for the farewell that was arranged for the batch.. we went for our own instead! we had a great time indeed! it was a really happy time then ! infact had i attended that farewell party, i probably would have repented for having gone there.. feeling like a stranger.. though i knew so many of them.. pretty well... that was all a great experience though!
12th was pathetic acads wise!till my boards though! i was my school 4th!no one believed that! neither my frnds.. nor my teachers! not myself either! my IIT and AIEEE were pathetic too.. and a 95 odd percentage was really soothing at this stage! and the place where i thought it was impossible for a CBSE student to get into was now within my reach.. BITS Pilani! i was really happy!
so here im! in BITS Pilani.. blogging.. 3 yrs since i came here. and blogging for the first time..