Henry “Fritz” Schaefer III (born June 8, 1944) a computational and theoretical chemist and an astrophysicist as well was one of the prominent personalities at the IIT TechFest ’08. To tell you more about this imminent personality, he is the author of a large number of scientific publications, and was the 6th most cited chemist from 1981 to 1997 and the Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Center for Computational Chemistry at the University of Georgia. He is a Fellow of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, the hub of the intelligent design movement, and the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design, and a signer of the Discovery Institute’s anti-evolution letter, A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism.
The Pyromania Team from Israel performed on Vande Matram (on occasion of 26th Jan, Republic Day) and the entire Open Air Theatre was on its feet cheering …! Truly one of the best moments of IIT TechFest 2008
Jimmy spoke about himself and gave a history and brief introduction about Wikipedia, Wikipedia in India and his concentration in the present day &lsquoWikia&rsquo. He spoke about Wikia Search in detail during the interview (see video). He gave interesting fact like there are over 200,000 articles in English on Wikipedia, but still that is not even ¼ of all the articles on the site. And Wikipedia in Indian languages.
The most awaited lecture of the TechFest’08 was the lecture by Mr. Jimmy Wales (Founder Wikipedia). Before the lecture started a trophy was presented to the best performing college of the TechFest. Jimmy Wales arrived just an hour before the lecture in the IIT campus. Even with that minimum amount of time, he was all ready for the presentation. What didn’t come to us as a surprise was the long (really long) Q for the lecture (seemed even longer than the Q for Technoholix)
The air show was aired in the evening on the NCC grounds. The air show had some brilliant moves. The pilots of the planes kept the audience captivated with their breathtaking maneuvers. The helicopter at the air also was amazing and had the audience in awe after completing some excellent somersaults. Overall the air show was good and there was a good response from the audience. (more…)
The programming competition at TechFest 08 was a great opportunity for students. The local IITB teams performed well. The competition was split across 3 days with different rounds. (Coding, Networking and Reverse Engineering).
The final round of Vertigo on the last day of TechFest was probably the most exciting competition we saw this year. The convocation hall at IITB was jam packed with the crowd cheering their favorite teams. We could heard nothing in the auditorium except VIT VIT VIT … There was no doubt that VIT had the majority support here.
The Rubiks cube session was very promising for students. The expectation of themselves being able to solve the cube in a minute and do it blindfolded as well brought them there. And I can tell you that the students were not left disappointed. The session conducted by Sachin a third year IIT-B student (a future great if we are allowed to say that) was interactive and he not only demonstrated the audience on how to do it but called up some volunteers to try their hand at implementing what they had learnt. The trick is to solve the grid with the help of algorithms which you need to learn by heart and then…
Yes you guessed it you can solve it in a minute and blindfolded as well.
I must say Bravo!!!
TechFest 2008 had the UK micromouse champions Jim Chidley & Derek Hall. They were the judges for the final round of the competition and they also conducted a workshop on how to build a micromouse on the second day of the event.
Jim & Derek have been building micromouse’s since over 24 years! Its the passion and craze for these micro wonders that keeps them moving. A lot of students look up to J&D for advise on how to build an effective micromouse. And this years TechFest @ IIT Bombay brought this great opportunity for the students to interact with them and learn how to build an effective micromouse. Jim and Derek also brought in a lot of their Mice for demonstration and this included MouseX, that won them the UK micromouse competition in 2007.
The workshop also focussed on a lot of technicals for building a micromouse. Architecture of some of the best ones was discussed.
On the last day of TechFest they showcased their best mice in action. Also present was Ashish Bhatt (ex-IITian) who has won probably the most micromouse competitions in India. Both Ashish and this year’s Winners also had a run with their micromouse along with the UK champions.
MouseX managed to put a best time of around 9 seconds wheres Ashish and the 2008 champions did between 12-14 secs. (Video Coming Shortly)
Janta, we have reached the 3rd and the Final Day of the TechFest 2008 here at IIT Bombay. It has been a splendid event, and we expect the most crowd today. Things to watch-out today: AirShow, FTGP Finalle, Jimmy Wales Lecture & the Laser Floyd.
The day has ended with an awesome Laser Show and a very good lecture by Jimmy Wales. We managed to get an exclusive video interview followed by a very productive chat with Jimmy Wales and John Hall (Executive Director of Linux International). Videos and complete interview and all the action from TechFest 08 here.
Day 2 of the IIT Techfest 08 is underway and here we have the latest buzz from the campus…More updates on day 2 events now live!
Pyromania rocked!!! The day had its great ending with Pyromania having given a great performance. As a Goodwill gesture the team also performed on Vande Matram for the occasion of Repulic Day. We exclusive Videos and Images from the Pyromania team which will be updated shortly. Also watch out for the exclusive OnlyGizmos’s Pyromania Interview. (more…)
Round 2 of F1GP elims on the first day of the TechFest 08 (Round 1 was on 24th, a day prior to the TechFest). Some teams struggled, whereas some did extremely well. F1GP has become a hot favorite, pulling plenty of crowd and media.
Yes thats the 15 year old whizkid Meet Patel, who made it through quite convincingly. After over 50 teams failing, only 3 made it to the final round. The boy somehow convinced his school to grant him a leave between his exams just to participate in the IIT Techfest 08.
(Update: All four contestants who passed the U-571 during round 1 and 2 have been declared the winners. So our whizkid is officially the winner of the event.)
It was a wonderful day here at the IIT Bombay campus. And the action here was nothing less than what we expected. Long ques and some amazing performances has left us wondering what more is coming over the weekend? Still what here is a quick look at the days highlights:
MicroMouse competition was amazing. Winners from IITB setting a record. View Video
U571 was really tough for the participants. But there were exceptions. View Video and Pics
F1 was kewl! Again a splendid performance by the participants. The eliminations continues today. Video Here
Lecture: Prof Henry F Schaefer (detailed coverage with video now available here)
Lecture: Blaise Aguera y Arcas (detailed coverage with video coming soon)
Lecture Cancelled: Robert E Kahn (Technical Snag)
Lumen Performance
Science Exhibition View Gallery / More Coverage on Day 2
We saw a few pretty good teams at the eliminations of the MircoMouse competition yesterday. However today we were completely blown away by a splendid performance by this years winners (from IIT Bombay itself), who’s micro wonder managed to crack the maze in just around 12secs! Reports were flying that this is probably good enough to beat the world record (Update: What we have confirmed is that this is the new record for IIT TechFest only)!! We have the exclusive videos and a Interview from the winning team.
The Micromouse started wit a slow examination of the maze and then in the subsequent runs went on performing faster. The first clip is the fastest.
Further Updates and videos for the IIT TechFest Day1 can be seen here
8:01PM: Our team is still in the IIT campus. We are covering LUMEN (the team from Switzerland) and we shall have the videos by tonite. OnlyGizmos shall also cover the U571 competition today around midnight.
A special Thanks for Mr Manas and Parasvil from IITB for making this coverage possible. Prof Henry F Schaefer has just completed with his lecture on ‘The Big Bang Theory, Stephen Hawking and God’. Our correspondent made it a point to attend the entire lecture. The entire lecture room was packed with participants with no seat available. The entire lecture saw everyone attentively participating.
However the lecture didn’t come without any protest. Interestingly a student came with pamphlets challenging the theory promoted by and thoughts of Prof Henry F Schaefer.
The Participants of the Full Throttle:Grand Prix are in a great battle to the finals. Great Performances by many and some try to complete the lap after many trials. Its a show of workmanship and engineering. The crowd not being a spoilt sport cheering each and every participant. The event Vertigo also seems to be the event of the ay where in participants with their robots show their skills in Robotics where they direct their robots to pick a bag with a definite weight and place it t a height where in the placement of the bag needs to be perfect at the exact block. This entire thing needs to be done in the least amount of time.
An amazing MicroMouse entry from COEP (College of Engineering Pune). This was one of the fastest and motile autonomous robot we we have seen during the IIT TechFest 2008.
And here is the official word on how the eliminations are taking place:
We are here at the IIT Bombay campus. Today we shall have the eliminations of some of the hottest competitions like MicroMouse, U571 & Full Throttle Grand Prix.
6:00PM:More pictures are now live on the Gallery! 5.10PM:Today is the day for trial run on the Grand Prix circuit. Team members representing their colleges have access to the circuit. They could perform a trial run on the circuit so as to prepare for the main event.
5.00PM: The eliminations of the Micromouse are in full swing. Till now around 50 teams have competed and among which 20 have made it to the final round. More 30 teams are expected for the eliminations for the day. The elimination round needs the team to get their robots move along the maze and complete a minimum of 16 blocks. The co-ordinators have mentioned that the fastest time to complete the 16 block hurdle was 14.2 sec by a team consisting of 2 members (Abhijeet Kundu (Institute of Engineering and Management- Kolkatta) & Abhishek Patil (Vidyalankar Institute of Technology-Mumbai)
4:50PM: The Grand Prix has stareted at KReSIT. (Correction: Eliminations are tomorrow, Today there is just a trial run for the Grand Prix)
4:45PM: Teams for the Micromouse Elimination round have started their robots through the maze. Each team gets 3 minutes for their run and the target is to cover 16 blocks with a minimum of two turns. There is no touch penalty for the day however during the final run of the event teams will be penalised for handling the robots manually after the start.
4:30PM: MicroMouse eliminations have started at the Convocation Hall.
Contact us, report errors, queries – service [at] onlygizmos [dot] com
This year the competitions are categorized in different sub groups named Xtreme Machines, Analogic, Innovision, Life2.0, and Ozone…
Xtreme Machines:
Blocks for Vertigo
Vertigo (Jan 25th 10am onwards): Requires the participants to build two machines. A machine (either wired or wireless remote control) that picks up blocks from the ground and places them on a elevated surface and a automatic machine that picks up those blocks and dumps them in a pit. More
The Racing Track
Full Throttle: Grand Prix (25/26/27 Jan): The mini F1 Grand Prix is here! And its bigger than ever before (Prize money USB 1200). Participants are required to make racing car running on IC engine and controlled by wireless remote. The race track will be a cemented track (2-3m wide) with left, right and U turns, hairpins etc. A tentative track is shown in the above image. More
Prison Break (26 Jan): Imagine a future where robots will be jailed (really hard i agree!). Here the autonomous robot made by the participants are required to jump over prison wall and escape. The machine has to be necessarily controlled by some wired remote control mechanism at all stages of the game. More than one team members can control the machine at a time, more than one control mechanisms can be used.
Wings (26th Jan): A glider or a remote controlled plane? Well both! A remote controlled glider that can stay in the air for the longest period and land at a pre-specified location! We will certainly get the videos for this one!
U-571 (25th Jan): This competition will be a race to complete a distance of 13m in water dogging the obstacles in between. Insider sources tell us that the machines might require to fully submerge in the water to overcome a few obstacles. So will we see a fully submerged submarine?
Micromouse (International event): One of the most popular competitions this year is the Micromouse. This competition tests the coding skills as well as the designing and circuit building abilities of the participants. The micrmouse robot is a independent machine that finds it way onto the center of a maze without any outside interference. It features a turning/steering mechanism, batteries to provide power, sensors to detect walls etc.
Pixel (International event): Ever seen robots play snooker? Build a computer controlled navigator that, with the help of an overhead/on-board camera and a computer, moves 6 balls of three different specified colours into similar three distinct coloured holes.
Vcc: Play Pac man, Simple! Just that you need to use your voice to control PacMan as there is no keyboard. Participants are required to design and build a chip that can recognize voice commands to move the PacMan.
Others @ Analogic are Mech–a–Boolean, Blitzkrieg, Codathlon, Photo Finish, Knock Out .. See here
Life 2.0:
SolEX: Going with the energy conservation theme of the IIT TechFest 08, participants are required to construct an apparatus which uses only solar energy Heats flowing air of specific flow rate at atmospheric pressure to maximum possible temperature & Heats flowing water to deliver maximum possible heat duty.
Eco-House: Design an energy efficient building for Energy Department of IIT Bombay. Supported with facts and figures of energy saved!
filtrOn: Participants are required to build the most effective portable water filter!
Co?struct: Design an Aircraft Hangar using Popsicle sticks (ice-cream sticks). The hanger must fitin fit the 380s and the 787s
Elixir: With prizes worth Rs 2lacs, this is one of the biggest. participating teams shall innovate in the following: Healthcare IT, Diabetes, Cardiology & Kidney failure.
Innovision:
Open Software: Any previously unimagined codes, innovative programs, software and even algorithms that would simplify any tasks would come under this category.
Open Hardware: Prototypes or models involving innovative mechanisms or circuitry to improve methods of doing a certain task or find ways to perform tasks hitherto never thought of would fall into this category.
Open Design: The innovative use of various technologies in different areas would be included in this category.
Ozone:
SciTech : The national quiz challenge is back and promises to be a battle between the best minds in the country.
Jack Of All Trades : Be quick , think rational and you could finish among top three who take away grand prizes. All you need to do is just register on the spot.
Junkyard Wars : Yes, As seen on TV! Make a machine out of junk and walk away with grand prizes.
