Mangalore, Oct 28 (DHNS): National Institute of Technology-Karnataka (NITK) will organise ‘Engineer’ golden jubilee edition— a technical symposium between October 29 and November 1 at its campus, said Joint Convener Hari Shankar.
Addressing a press meet here on Tuesday, he said ‘Engineer’ —NITK’s annual flagship technical extravaganza is built on the idea of bringing together various sciences and engineering disciplines and providing budding innovators across the nation, a platform to challenge them and to benchmark their ingenuity.
He said one of the most anticipating event in the Engineer is a demonstration by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) media labs, Boston. The team will showcase exciting projects like iCam—a device used to measure a person’s physiological responsiveness, Facesense—a software used to predict emotional states using facial gestures and Wii Guitar—a wireless guitar using Nintendo Wii gadget.
‘Sparsh’
He said a new initiative of Engineer Golden Jubilee Edition is ‘Sparsh’ which aims at developing a rural region linking it with a team of NGOs and sponsors like Balmer-Lawrie, GE, Suzlon and the Population Survey of India, realising an economically feasible and sustainable idea. “We will be accepting development plans from students across India and the selected teams will be required to visit the area and plan a viable scheme for the community during Engineer. If plan turns out to be the best suited for the region, it will be implemented by our network of NGOs with the support of the associated sponsors. The village of Munda in DK has been chosen for this pioneer project.”
In ‘The last word’ prominent personalities will discuss and exchange ideas relating to the role of global players in the Indian Education system on November 1 at 1 pm.
Shankar said in a bid to be part of the global fight against climate change, the students in association with 350.org will gather at Surathkal Lighthouse to mark the International Day for Climate Action. There will be talks by experts.
Guest lectures
There will be video conference with Prof Douglas Osheroff from Stanford University (Winner of Noble Prize in Physics in 1996) on October 29 at 9 pm; with Michael Cremo (who is famous for his alternative theory to Darwin’s evolutionary theory) on October 30 at 9 pm.
Guest lectures include talks on intellectual rights by DRDO Chairman Dr S Sankaran on November 1 (10 am to 11 am at main seminar hall) and Head of Bell Labs in India Dr Vishy Poosala (11 am to 12 noon).
Workshop on robotics, cryptography, adobe flex and light painting will be another added attraction.
Shankar said there will be 45 events spread across various disciplines. For the electronics buffs, there will be ‘Automata’—the autonomous robot competition; ‘Symphony’—the musical fountain programming contest and ‘Foxhunt’—Radio Transmitter tracking challenge. The regional round of ‘Roboliga’—a nationwide robotics workshop cum competition is scheduled during the fest. For the mechanical students, events like ‘Perfect machine’ ‘velocity’ —an IC engine powered car racing event will be held.
For the civil and mechanical engineering students, there will be events like ‘architect,’ ‘Colossus’ and ‘Sustantivo’ will be held. Students of Chemical and Material Science stream will have competitions like ‘Contraption,’ ‘breakdown,’ ‘metamorphosis’ which will test their knowledge of chemical reactions and their chemical analytical skills.
For the budding researchers, the fest will provide an opportunity to present their work in ‘Blueprint,’ a technical paper presentation contest.
To showcase the mathematical and business skills, there will be ‘Mock-stock’—a stimulated stock trading contest; Ad-venture—the search for the next big advertising campaign and ‘E-pitch’—a complete business plan.