TechTatva’17 Events In-Short: Day Two

Bailout
By Bizzmaestro

The journey of Realizing Fiction was made even more thrilling as the participants relived what was claimed to be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The financial crisis of 2007–2008, known as the global financial crisis, was presented to the participants through a series of hypothetical scenarios, challenging them to find ways to prevail in one of the worst economies of all time.

AIB
By Acumen

The event tested the deduction abilities of the participants, as they were presented with science based questions. Those who were able to provide logical solutions moved on to the second round, where they will face a real-life sized ‘Game of Thrones’ themed board game. The aim of the game is to correctly answer the questions asked to move forward, gain special powers and ultimately conquer the throne.

Scarlet Plaque
By Chrysalis

The world’s end draws near, a virus epidemic breaks out, and you must survive with your wit, and resourcefulness.

The first round consisted of a quiz of six questions for a duration of 30 minutes, with topics like Biology, Astrophysics and Quantum Mechanics being covered. The Winners of this round progressed to the next round, due to be held on the 6th of October. The questions leaned more on the logical side, rather than being academic.

The turnout for the event was relatively satisfactory; significantly more than some of the other events held on day 1. The next two rounds of the event will be held on 6^th, and 7^th, for the eight teams that did exceptionally well to qualify for them.

Hydronomics
By Mechanize

Hydronomics by Mechanize was an attempt to encourage young minds to build something extraordinary from the pre-existing ordinary.

The event was a test of both theoretical and practical skills. An aptitude test was given to the participant teams, to be simultaneously answered along with the task of designing and building a machine based on the concept of the hydraulic chair, a device capable of lifting objects using forces powered by fluids. Contestants were left to work right on their toes testing both their knowledge and their technical abilities at the same pace and the same time.

The turnout for the event was much appreciated by all the organizers, who were pleased to receive a great response towards their call to innovating out of simplicity. The best four teams from this event then qualified for the final round, scheduled to be held on Day Three.

Hydrophilia 

By Kraftwagen

As the hot afternoon sun came out from the clouds, the crowd at the MIT food court gathered around the pool to watch the much awaited event by Kraftwagen, Hydrophilia. Although the intense competition set sail a day late due to problems with the operations, the event finally ‘sailed’ smoothly. Participants were instructed to build a boat that had to perform various tasks such as lifting objects, pushing blocks and completing an obstacle course.

Amazed by the performance of the participants, event head Harkirat and co-event head Shashank said that this year’s event received much more praise from the crowd as well as participating members. As an exhilarating day 1 for Hydrophilia came to an end, only 6 out of the 9 participating teams made it into Round Two.

Sky Lantern
By Airborne

The glowing lanterns against the night sky is a sight to behold. Attending this event organised by the Airborne category made the participants realize that it’s not so difficult to make one on your own. The final round followed a workshop organized the day before, where the students were given a tutorial on how to make these lanterns; familiarizing them with the concepts of physics such as the working of a hot air balloon.

Two of the participants, Neha and Sahil said that the wokshop was extremely informative. Everything was explained very well, and they were taught how to make the lantern from the very basics. The final task was to put together a lantern that could carry the maximum payload and remain in the air for the longest time. Category head, Varun explained that the idea was to use this technique to deliver amenities to stranded people during natural calamities like floods and earthquakes. The event was judged by Prof. Umananda of the Aeronautical department.

Sudo Titans
By Cryptoss

Day one of TechTatva saw one of Crytoss’ event, Sudo Titans kick off. The participants were required to solve a series of technical questions in order to make it to the next round. The category heads came up with the idea of a non-coding event for the first time in the Cryptoss category. Their aim was to reach out to that part of the student body who have basic technical knowledge but haven’t gotten a chance to hone their coding skills.

The event saw a lot of participation, with the entire room packed with enthusiastic first and second year students. The written MCQ round consisted of questions that tested one’s theoretical knowledge on topics like programming languages, and computer hardware.

Category Head, Ritwij Sinha was happy to share the story behind the name “Sudo Titans”. ‘Sudo’ is a command that allows you root access, which is basically privileged control over your system. In this event, they’re searching for that one superuser who can gain root access without using ‘sudo’, and hence be proclaimed as the Sudo Titan.

Theoritize
By Cosmic Con

Round one of the event Theoritize, organized by Cosmic Con, consisted of a written round where the participants had to answer questions based on astronomy and general aptitude. There were a total of 28 questions of varying difficulty.

The event saw moderate participation and was very well organized, being one of the most disciplined events of the fest. The category and event heads made sure that everything went smoothly.

Category head, Rohan Gupta said, “This time, we didn’t want to restrict ourselves to events that only tested the participant’s astronomical knowledge, which is why we came up with something much more fun for the next rounds. They’ll focus more on one’s creativity, rather than factual knowledge.” They plan on conducting a quiz related to the game Psych.

Survival Limit
By Epsilon

The countdown had started. The pressure was on. Here, natural human instinct mattered. Participants were put in life-threatening, heart-racing situations, and to survive or not was all their choice. The first day of the event saw a gradually increasing turnout, and finally started an hour beyond time, after a considerable amount of participants showed up. On the second day of TechTatva, Survival Limit witnessed a second serving of its first round. “It’s actually due to the overwhelming response”, commented an event volunteer. However, on looking at the participants’ faces, it seemed as though this event’s ‘to do or die’ motto had them pick the latter. All in all, in its first year of organisation, the fight for the survival of the fittest was one to be wary of.

Fox Hunt
By Alacrity

The event required the participants to develop an antenna capable of receiving signals. They were guided under the expertise of the Alacrity organisers, who meticulously took them through the whole process. They were provided with the framework, plywood, and a pipe. Soldering was definitely one of the harder parts in the event. Quite a few sighs of exasperation, smiles of satisfaction, and a few frowns of frustration later, they had their Yagi Uda Antennae ready. Category Head Yash Gupta says that being a student of ECE himself, one learns the theory of an antenna, but being part of an event like this gives one the practical hands-on experience you can’t learn in class. Especially for the first years, this is an ‘added advantage’ they’re getting three semesters early.

Tunnel Borers
By Constructure

Tunnel Borers, as the name suggests, was all about the idea of tunnel construction and engineering in the most efficient manner. The event started with a slight delay of thirty minutes, and immediately provided participants with the task of designing a room underground based on three dimensional cross-section projections that were provided on screen. Participants had to take account of various parameters such as appropriate site locations, measurements of excavations, building materials and such. The objective of the question paper was to test how resourcefully the given task could be executed. In chronological order, participants worked through picking an appropriate site, choosing methods and materials cost effectively and finally adding labour costs to calculate the total incurring expenditure. Amitoj Singh, coordinator of the event shared that the question papers took over four months to be compiled and would put participants to a greater challenge in the second round, where they would be dealing with underwater tunnelling.

Clawstruck
By Kraftwagen

Spectators were truly ‘Clawstruck’, as the eight teams added the final touches to their clawbots. Each team consisted of 2-4 members. Contestants had been instructed to build a small, mobile bot of pre-specified dimensions. The real challenge was the robotic claw attached to the bot, which had been designed and constructed in just a week’s time. The event consisted of an obstacle course, which the clawbots had to complete as fast as possible. The course included sea-saws and ramps, and was to be traversed by the bot while the claw moved objects out of the way simultaneously. Crossing a time limit of five minutes resulted in elimination. Finally, only the top six teams with the most successful completion rate moved on to the next round.

Super Heroes
By Cryptoss

Super Heroes, a competitive coding event under Cryptoss hosted their first round today, in an alternative universe here superheroes exist as college students, with each one’s superpower being their proficiency in coding. These super heroes were scattered into four teams: Avengers, X Men, Defenders and Guardians, and these teams were then pit against each other by the ominous and all-powerful entity known as ‘The Organizers’, with the title of ‘Earth’s mightiest Coders’ on the line.

Super Heroes was not merely a straight out coding event, adding a fun gimmick to the process. The teams were subjected to a ‘Wheel of Fate’, which would give advantages or disadvantages to particular teams based entirely on luck, like when the team ‘Avengers’ were made to switch off their screens for three minutes, effectively blinding he superheroes as they charged forth into the battle for survival.

The teams had to tackle various questions with varying weightage of marks, with the magnitude of marks deciding who moves forward.

PIN 13
By Alacrity

The second round of PIN 13 was held under Alacrity on Day Two in the AB5 Electronics Lab. The six remaining teams competed in a battle of brains as the second round took them through three different challenges testing their knowledge of electronics on every level.

The first challenge that they had to face was a written test, but there were no formal questions. The question was in the form of a story which had characters throughout vaguely resembling electrical components. The contestants were expected to identify these components from the story.

The second challenge involved the teams to use these identified parts to use them in practical applications, with the help of some extra components, in an attempt to test their practical knowledge.

The final challenge was soldering where the neatness and efficiency of the competing teams’ soldering was tested. Each challenge was worth ten marks, and the competing teams await the result on Day Two as only four of these six competing teams will move forward to the final round.

Refuse To Sink
By Robotrek

Participants hankered to prevent their robots from getting anchored in Refuse to Sink, an event under Robotrek on day two of TechTatva ’17. The event was held outside the MIT food court, with the water pool providing as an obstacle course. Participants in teams of two built submarine-like robots that navigated through the water course with obstacles such as anchored balloons, juice bottles, containers and wooden planks. Participants’ robots were judged on the basis of speed, number of obstructions and communication between the transmitter and receiver. Five teams sailed into the finals and will compete to win the title of the champion.

Conkreation

By Constructure

Continuing from where they’d left off the previous day, the teams participating in Conkreation were required to add to the dam they were made to construct with bricks.

Their next job was to plaster the dam with a mixture of sand and cement in the perfect proportion. While this sounded like a simple task, it was anything but that for some of the teams. It appeared to be an arduous task for the participants to get the mixture to settle well with the water, while making the mixture itself is often a time consuming job that tests one’s patience to great limits. The large quantity of sand and cement provided to them to be utilized was accompanied by a two hour time limit.

The teams must wait two days for the mixture to settle, following which the final round is to be held on the 7th October, where these dams themselves will be tested by the strength of water pressure.

MIQ
By Acumen

MIQ (short for Manipal’s IQ) was conducted on Day Two of TechTatva. The 35-minute event was a quiz conducted in the form of a pen-and-paper test. The test contained general questions coupled with logical puzzles to assess the aptitude and reasoning skills. The event saw mandated solo participation. As none of the questions tested technical kills, participants didn’t need any preparation. As a result, the event attracted a large number of contestants. The overall atmosphere was analogous to an examination hall. Short-listed participants would advance to the final round, scheduled to occur on Day Four. One more iteration of Round One is scheduled to occur on Day Three.

Industrialise
By Cheminova

Industrialise is an event in which the participants are required to build a refinery with a budget of 250 billion. The first round took place in the pre-TechTatva week and Day Two saw the participants through the second and final round. Within their allotted budget, the participants were required to buy essential and optional units for their industries and also arrange the units in proper order to form a functional refinery (albeit on paper). All participants were briefed on the inner workings of a refinery and given the information necessary to build it. They’ll be judged on the feasibility of their model, the amount of money they save, and each of the units they buy has a designated number of points that need earning. Lastly, the participants underwent a viva wherein they answered questions about their models. In the words of Parul, one of the organisers, it was a little like Monopoly.

Final Frontier
By Cryptoss

Round One of Final Frontier, a competitive coding event by Cryptoss, saw a flurry of laptops and USBs and paper as the participants attempted inventive questions testing their efficiency and speed. This event, hosted for the first time at TechTatva, stands apart from the rest as it is offline, increasing the level of engagement. Participants advanced to further ‘civilisations’ by solving four questions at a time, the codes becoming increasingly difficult, the correct answer becoming more rewarding. They will be assessed based on their performance in the one and a half hour challenge and accordingly progress to the next round. According to event head Chaitanya Kumar, the next round will further test the eight qualifying teams’ tactical sense, entwining science fiction and strategy apart from codes. The turnout consisted of returning seniors as well as first years, all brought together by their interest in coding.

Gaming

Gaming is actually fiction as one individual is living the life of someone else through the computer screen so this event very well matches with the theme of this year’s TechTatva “Realizing Fiction.” The Round One for Gaming was held on Day Two of the TechTatva. Two new games made their debut this year- Age of empire 3, Blur along with FIFA, CSGO, COD, and DOTA. As the name suggests this was a gaming event where two teams of 5 each were playing against each other.

Basically a tournament was being hosted and the winning team qualified for the next round.

“As of now on the first day we played 6 matches, it was a good response. In the beginning we faced some problems with the LAN cables but it has been sorted and the players are also good,” said Ujjwal (event head) who along with his organisers and volunteers prepared this event within 4 to 5 days.

Money Tracker
By Bizzmaestro

With Central Perk Market and Bailout, Bizzmaestro organised Money Tracker on Day Two of TechTatva. The aim of the event was to build the skills of the students, for tracking down black money in the market. This non-technical event’s first round was basically an aptitude test. They also had a low turn up like other TechTatva events with only 13 people who showed up whereas forty people had registered for it. Aryan, an organiser of the event explained the test saying that participants were given balance sheets with some errors in them, which they had to find out using basic mathematical operations. The participants kept a track of the money for three hours.

Make It Easy
By Airborne

“A mile of a highway will just take you across the highway, but a mile of a runway will take you anywhere in the world.”- Varun, 3rd year Aeronautical Engineering, MIT. Make It Easy, conducted under the Airborne category for the first time held their workshop on the 5th of October to prepare the participants for the main event, which was held on Day Two of TechTatva ’17. Both individuals and teams of two put their logical skills to the test as they were made to draw a 2D model of an airport based on the criteria provided to them on their questionnaires. Varun further said, “The only difficulty is scaling, and it’s the most important. Apart from that it’s easy; hence Make It Easy. The good part about this event is that the participants aren’t restricted to the aeronautical branch and it’s nice to see the diversity of branches.” The hour and a half long test had more logical questions as opposed to technical ones.

Hack it out 

By Turing

A beautifully thought out event, pitted contestants against the fictitious mob bosses of the dark world of human trafficking. Hiding under the façade of a legitimate company called ‘open box’, the bosses continue to plot in a hidden chatroom. The hackers must gauge the personality of each of the four main bosses and thus find vulnerabilities in their security system. The end goal, to obtain the passwords, all four of which must be input simultaneously to access the chatroom and expose them for good!

Air-O-Mania

One of the events on the technical side, the event challenged the contestants to build their own blow machine, using their wits to design and build it from scratch using motors, pieces of metal strips which they had to shape into blades, and plastic boxes. Their task, to use the blower to push a Table Tennis ball through a maze with a variety of obstacles such as sandpaper, clay , bumps etc. points were awarded for design, how well it was built, power of the blow machine, and how long it took the ball to navigate the maze.

Drag Race

By Fuel RC

For all one knows, a day at TechTatva demands a lot of vigour and prompts sober hisses of frustration amongst organizers and participants alike. Cue the Drag race spell~ Silken love for petrol; perpetual lusting for the engines’ roars; sweat and grime oozing under bruxist breath.

Drag racing, the second of the four events under the banner of the Fuel RC category  attracted humongous crowds of awestruck spectators and pumped partakers than the majority of events that took place on day 1. The event took place in front of the 13th block on a dainty little road stretch with boomboxes in silent corners. Customary to TechTatva blues of delay, the event commenced and wrapped up late than its intended 7:30 to 9:00pm schedule.

Drag racing, as seen in the Fast and Furious movie series, is one on one, head to head racing where the speed and the handling of the automobiles are tested, in a strife to reach the finish-line first. The aesthetic tiny dragster cars shown off at TechTatva by participating individuals or teams were either self-made or bought and modified whooping six figure creations.

Talking of how this year’s Drag racing event was conspicuous than its past counterparts, organizer Amkit K remarked that the 2017 Drag race denounced manual involvement or manipulation in determining the winner, as lasers accurate to 0.01 seconds were employed. Advancement into the races saw some RC dragsters victoriously bolt across the race track while some awkwardly fidgeted off course.

By far, the drag race proved to be a crowd-pleaser and a grand stroke for the efforts of the organizers.

Brainstorming with LEGOs

By Mechatron
LEGOs. We all remember them as the little blocks we built the stuff out of our imagination with. Or even better, the small monsters of pain that we sometimes stepped on. For the people at Brainstorming with LEGO however, LEGOs were to become the parts of a robot. The first round for the event began a little past schedule. A written test with some basic questions about robotics and logical ability was what Round One consisted of. Thought the event had only 4 teams participating, event head Ashwini said she was glad with the way the event folded out. As the test ended in around an hour, students walked out of the hall with inspired faces, ready for the next round the day after.