(Reported by Varun Murli, 3rd Mechanical and Ankit Khanna, 2nd Engg. Physics)
Technex- ITBHU’s national level annual technical fest was organized from the 19th to the 21st of January 2007. Technex’ 07 was promised to be a “reverie beyond races” and at the end of three enjoyable and technically stimulating days, it lived up to its promise. This is a year where Technex’ 07 has set new standards, be it in the quality of events, overall participation, guest lectures and workshops and not to forget huge cash prizes- a brand new 150 cc bike for the Panchatantrika, Rs. 20,000 in cash for the best working model as well as the ‘Code Warrior’. With total prizes worth Rs. 4 lakh and participation over 30 colleges and schools, Technex 07 has undoubtedly been a resounding success.
This will be remembered as a trend-setting year; the year in which Technex went international when Prof. Jackie Baltes and his team had humanoids swaying to tunes (along with the audience) of popular Indian songs and playing soccer. Guest lectures by Prof. Amitabha Ghosh, Mr. Rohan Narse and Prof. Arun Jain and industry-oriented workshops by IBM, TCS, Cognizant & L&T were enriching experiences.
Modex– The Model Exhibition featured over 30 models besides exhibitions on Ceramics & Mining Engineering. The ingenuity was there for all to see with robotic cars, magnetically levitated trains, digital economies and robotic arms; technology that is going to run tomorrow’s world.
Extreme Engineering- a new addition to this year’s festival aimed at finding solutions to real life problems which are discipline specific. Be it Mechaniche– The Mechanical Designing Contest; Chemoflage– The Thermodynamics simulation & Plant Setup Contest; I-Struct– The civil engineering cantilever truss design contest; Metamorphous- Optimizing The Metal Spraying Process; Electronica– The Electronic Circuit designing contest or Empowered– Design of Non-Conventional power plants; Technex ’07 set a new trend.
Robotrix- the Robotics Contest was into its third edition and here too Technex set new benchmarks with wireless robots in Need For speed- The Robot Race.
Optika- The Image Processing Contest and Quest for Atlantis- The Underwater Navigation Contest which had bots wading through a 3000 litre tank. Not to forget Robocop- the theme-based robotic event.
Papyrus- the Paper Presentation contest saw a whole lot of ideas and thesis put forward in the domains of Machine Design and Innovation; Chemical Process and Energy; Materials, Life Science & Pulsating Ideas as well as Computing & Mathematics. A new addition this year was the theme based paper “Consultants are rapidly transforming into world citizens”.
Bal Vigyan- saw participation in excess of a 100 students. The School Quiz tested their awareness on general issues and the youngsters were up to it.
The software industry is a behemoth and Byte the Bits- the software zone reflected that with participation of around 400 students. Eniac– The Open Software Design Contest for 1st and 2nd year students; Altair- Idea conceptualization through software for 3rd and 4th year students; Code Warriors– The Search for the best coder; Nightshift– The Overnite software contest and Endeavour– The Pre-defined problem contest surely had the future Narayana Murthys and Sabeer Bhatias putting their wits to test.
Panchatantrika- The Hunt for the Complete man saw around 350 students competing for that prestigious tag. Redesigning Banaras saw engineers racking their brains on how to supply electricity more efficiently in Banaras and also to enhance tourism near Ramnagar Fort.
Technex ’07 would not have been possible but for the team behind it. The student team led by Mr. Prayut Bhamawat deserves to be congratulated for putting on a grand show.