Tryst with Tech Fest

I had the opportunity of visiting a Tech Fest after a long time. The last one dates back to 1985.. during my Diploma days. Tech Fest is held in IIT Bombay every January. This year it was held from 24 - 26 Jan 2009. Students from all over India, participated in this event.

IIT is very near to our house. But, I never had an opportunity to survey the entire campus, though I have been there for walking and restrict myself either to Guest House, which is bordering Powai Lake on one side or up to Kendriya Vidyalaya, where Vishnu & Jayakrishna go for playing cricket in their school ground.

On 24 Jan 2009, Vishnu was insisting me that we should come to IIT to see all the events on 25 Jan (Sunday). He took charge of the situation and told us that he knew the Campus very well and he would guide us to all those places and explain it to us!! Such was his enthusiasm that he wanted to show his parents everything that he enjoyed on the previous day (24 Jan 2009) after his last unit Test.

He managed to get a nice brochure on the previous day indicating the program, timing, venue with a three dimensional topography of IIT and decided the route so that we make a circle in clockwise direction. We must have walked atleast 4 km to cover all these areas.

We started with Exhibition displayed at his KV School Ground, where many engineering models were on display. On one corner of the ground, racing track was set up for the miniature car race. These cars were designed and developed by students. Everyone was carrying their car like they carry a skate board. It was of that size only, with all features present in a normal car. We saw the miniature racing. These cars were controlled by remote for their direction and speed.

Next on the main road adjoining KV school ground, was the display of DRDO!!. We saw the huge Arjun BLT (a combination of Battle tank with a folding overlap bridge on its head) which was so majestic and the persons from DRDO displayed it by extending the bridge. The bridge extends to about a length of 25 meters with width being 3 meters. I had a pride that we have our family member served this organisation for many years with distinction.

In the same area, models of missiles like Agni, Akash, Prithvi, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) were also on display. For a change, Vishnu was explaining us the significance of those items, as the leading particulars were on display.

Next we went to see the stall “How Aero Plane works”. In this area, 8 lap tops were kept to see for ourselves about the topic we want to see. Mainly they have concentrated on Boeing 747 & 757. There was a small workshop for visitors to make Aero Planes out of paper and a Volunteer was there to explain all of us about the significance of Rudder, Flaps, Elevators and Ailerons, by making folds and cuts in paper itself. The principle was explained in such a simple manner, where a kid can even understand.

We then went to IIT Gymkhana ground, where students were making their aero models to fly which was a competition for them. Thereafter we came to auditorium to see robots fighting. These robots were controlled electronically by remote. I was amazed to see that, there were weight categories for this fight aptly termed as “Robot Boxing”.

By the side of the auditorium, there was a program called “Concreate”, in which students were given a photograph of a bridge resembling like new Howrah bridge. The students used huge amount of ice-cream sticks, Thread to construct these bridges. This was also a category of competition, wherein different entries existed for different load class.

After seeing all these with Vishnu we spent quality time, which gave him immense satisfaction and he proudly claimed that he has taken us through a festival of this magnitude. I was very happy for the fact that it took me back to 1982 - 85.