(with inputs from Anoosh - my friend and co-coord for Shaastra 2009)It has been a really long break from blogging, largely due to lack of time, and perhaps, lack of an interesting subject to write about. The 7th sem has begun and is more-than-half over. Acads are going on nicely, Shaastra is just over and I finally have the time and an interesting topic to write on!
It all starts with an idea, they say. This did start with an idea. An idea to prove that academics (read: electrical engineering) can be fun when seen from the right perspective. An idea to start a unique genre of events in Shaastra - tech-unwind, one that has less of tech and more of fun! An idea that later came to be known as Short Circuit!
It all starts with an idea, they say. This did start with an idea. An idea to prove that academics (read: electrical engineering) can be fun when seen from the right perspective. An idea to start a unique genre of events in Shaastra - tech-unwind, one that has less of tech and more of fun! An idea that later came to be known as Short Circuit!
The motivation
An analysis of the participants' statistics of Shaastra 2008 revealed that out of the 20000-odd students who registered on the Shaastra website, more than 4000 belonged to Electrical engineering and related branches (ECE, EEE, E&I etc.). And how many competitive events did Shaastra 2008 had to offer to them? Just ONE! Something that made us (me and Anoosh) ponder for a few days.
An analysis of the participants' statistics of Shaastra 2008 revealed that out of the 20000-odd students who registered on the Shaastra website, more than 4000 belonged to Electrical engineering and related branches (ECE, EEE, E&I etc.). And how many competitive events did Shaastra 2008 had to offer to them? Just ONE! Something that made us (me and Anoosh) ponder for a few days.
The conception and planning
We wanted to conceive of an event that would entertain the large number of Elec masses who throng Shaastra, an event that would be a crowd-puller! After a lot of discussions and deliberations, during a casual stroll around the Cubbon Park (Bangalore) on one fine summer evening, the idea of Short Circuit struck us.
The plan was concretized. Have an open-to-all prelims with questions that evoke a "Yes, yes! I can crack it" kind of feeling upon first reading and which involve application of nothing more than common sense and basic electrical engineering fundaes. Select eight teams from the prelims, and pit them one-on-one against each other in short, crisp and exciting matches spanning 4 quarters, 2 semis and 1 grand finale!
"Elec can be fun too, mind it", we proclaimed!
The publicity
The Official Short Circuit Teaser Video became an instant hit, recording more than 200 views on Youtube in less than 3 hours of getting uploaded. The Official Short Circuit Mascot, a plug-and-socket combination representing a short circuit, became a cult figure straightaway and won several admirers, including certain profs whose interests in Shaastra 2009 till then were limited only to the laser/fireworks show and the grub stalls.
We brought out a couple of teaser questions just before Shaastra to get insti junta excited about Short Circuit. The response was amazing. The lucky winners of these teaser questions, on the day of the grand finale, walked away with assorted gift-hampers consisting of Shaastra T-shirts, Shaastra key-chains, Open Solaris CDs, NetBeans IDE CDs and copies of Electronics For You, all neatly packaged in bio-degradable paper bags brought from Gurunath.
We were overwhelmed when a lot of our insti friends accepted our request to put flyers on Short Circuit on their GTalk status messages. Our sincere thanks to all of them!
[Click on the pic to enlarge and appreciate!]
[Click on the pic to enlarge and appreciate!]The event
The prelims, held in CRC on October 3 (Saturday), saw more than 150 teams (~450 students) turning up, including ~60 teams from outside IITM. The question-paper, prepared after 4 straight night-outs of research, became quite popular among the participants, with many of them coming to us later to convey their kudos. The feedback from the participants was amazing; none of the ratings in any of the feedback forms were below 4/5 (5 = Best).The post-prelims, conducted on the next day in ICSR Hall 3, witnessed an all-insti clash. A fourth-year undergrad team comprising of Chinmoy, Harish and Kishore breezed through the quarters and semis before surviving a scare from an MS team (Timir, Ankesh, Kunal) in the finale to eventually emerge champions!
The post-prelims rounds would be more fondly remembered by the audience for the unique Elec-dumb-charades that had the entire hall in splits. Raghunandan, trying to enact 'convolution', rotated himself, spun an electron and went to the extent of revolving the planets and the universe, but the convolution never happened. Sathish's love for Theoretical Physics was clearly evident as he resorted to Planck's constant and photons to enact a term as simple as 'frequency'.
The post-prelims rounds would be more fondly remembered by the audience for the unique Elec-dumb-charades that had the entire hall in splits. Raghunandan, trying to enact 'convolution', rotated himself, spun an electron and went to the extent of revolving the planets and the universe, but the convolution never happened. Sathish's love for Theoretical Physics was clearly evident as he resorted to Planck's constant and photons to enact a term as simple as 'frequency'.
The circuit-makers
We would like to thank a few people - Faheem (for making the awesome Teaser Video), Arvind (for designing the immortal mascot), Pavan (for handling all our production requirements), Sagar (our QMS coord), Vignesh-SK-Akhil (the Events Cores, for providing all possible support to our idea of Short Circuit), Gainda-Subbu (the Finance Cores, for being kind to provide T-Shirts and keychains as audience prizes), Raghav (the Spons Core, for arranging copies of EFY as audience prize), Tarun-Vamsi-Kishor-Sunaina-Nitish (our vols, for their amazing enthusiasm towards organizing and conducting the event), Manekha (a photography vol, who captured the dumb-charades moments) and everyone else who helped us conduct the event successfully!
A multitude of plans to take Short Circuit forward is in the pipeline - to organize it on a much grander scale next year, to continue it as part of E2A this year, to organize an all-profs' Short Circuit during the upcoming Elec Nite.
We would like to thank a few people - Faheem (for making the awesome Teaser Video), Arvind (for designing the immortal mascot), Pavan (for handling all our production requirements), Sagar (our QMS coord), Vignesh-SK-Akhil (the Events Cores, for providing all possible support to our idea of Short Circuit), Gainda-Subbu (the Finance Cores, for being kind to provide T-Shirts and keychains as audience prizes), Raghav (the Spons Core, for arranging copies of EFY as audience prize), Tarun-Vamsi-Kishor-Sunaina-Nitish (our vols, for their amazing enthusiasm towards organizing and conducting the event), Manekha (a photography vol, who captured the dumb-charades moments) and everyone else who helped us conduct the event successfully!
A multitude of plans to take Short Circuit forward is in the pipeline - to organize it on a much grander scale next year, to continue it as part of E2A this year, to organize an all-profs' Short Circuit during the upcoming Elec Nite.As we take a break and look back, we feel proud of initiating this unique event; it was a start really well made!
