MEET THE STARS OF INNOVISION 2017

 

APPRENTICE WINNER- Rakshit

So how was your experience at apprentice?

The experience was great. I was a very different person up until 10th but all that changed when I entered the 11th grade. I started JEE preparation and in the next 2 years, I became a new Rakshit who was into studies most of the time and then I made it into NITK.

So, even during the first round, I was the studious Rakshit but by the final round, it wasn’t the same anymore. I was presenting as the CEO of Uber and I was able to speak properly without fear or apprehension and I feel like the old me is back now. Earlier in school, I used to conduct many programs and participate in various activities which stopped for two years but now I’m able to do what I used to do before and I am happy that I am able to discover myself and find a new interest in marketing. 

I was in two minds when I entered NITK as I was unsure about pursuing either coding or marketing. I actually had a start-up idea because my parents were really into it and I didn’t know if I should go ahead with the start-up plan or do an MBA. 

Which was your favourite and least favourite round? 

My favourite part as I said earlier was the last round due to which I was able to rediscover myself.Finishing up the whole ppt as well as researching on the topic given in just over half an hour really helped me get back to my previous self.

My least favourite round as such was the first round of the GD where there were too many people and some couldn’t get the chance to speak and that   maybe it could have been done better .

 What were the main challenges you faced? 

The main hurdles we faced were during the B-Plan stage as there were only 2 of us in the team . We defnitely had a lot of fun but we would have done better with 5 people. Secondly, i am a boy who sleeps at night and wakes up at 5 so staying up till 3 30 was really hard for me but i was doing something i love so I didn’t really care about it. 

Which round was the most pressurizing? 

We only call something pressurizing if we don’t like it and I liked everything so nothing was really pressurizing for me. 

Are you satisfied with how the seniors organized this event? 

Yes, I am, especially in the B-Plan round the mentors helped us a lot. 

Did you know anything about finance before participating or did you learn over the period? 

I learnt a lot actually I didn’t even know the basic terms of finance I went back and searched whatever I could for the B-Plan and learnt how finance and marketing work in a business. 

What are the other skills you learned in the competition? 

I started to mingle with people around me which I was not very good at before so now I talk to many random people and try to gain contacts. 

Was being a day scholar a challenge? 

Not at all.  I use my travel time in studying or doing productive things but only in the ad making round we had a difficulty as my teammate was in the hostel and communicating over the phone about everything but other than that it didn’t really make a difference. 

Did apprentice inspire you in any way? 

Yes, the first thing I did after going back home was call up Nihal and ask about the different marketing competitions and events taking place in college and I  applied for the Engineer Marketing team as well. 

 APPRENTICE RUNNER UP- Iteesha 

How was your experience at Apprentice? 

Starting off, I didn’t know anything about the event or what it involved. Few seniors told me it’s a great event and I should try it out. The first round was the group discussion and it was fun. The second round was more fun, it was a personal interview, I’ve never had an interview in my life. It was a nice interview, and there was nothing scary about it.  The third round however, kept me up all night, and all day I couldn’t eat anything due to nervousness . The ideas were amazing and the way everything was organised was great. I have never been interested in finance and business, but the exposure I’ve got in these 3 days was huge. The fourth round was the team interview, where you had to show how you work as a team. This was such a great idea to bring out the leadership qualities in a person. The fifth round was a pressure interview which was a  little scary as there were 6 people in a room, firing questions at you. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it, the questions that were shot at me made me think so much and I don’t think I could’ve answered it, but the pressure really brought out the best in me. The final round was scary, i was called and told that in half an hour i had to become the CEO of a company and I didn’t even know where Qatar was and I got a crisis on Qatar airways. I had to prepare and present it in a short span of time. I thought this was beyond my league but I did it and my name was called out, which was pretty unexpected. I was surprised.  

 What do you think was the best part of the event? What do you think should have been improved? 

I think the group discussions should’ve been improved, I got very less time because of block timings and I got barely 10 minutes to speak on a huge topic.  I thought the fifth round was amazing, I want to attend more of such interviews.  

 Did Apprentice aspire you to participate in more events or to pursue this field? 

Yes, as I told you, three days back I wouldn’t have said I’m interested in this field but my mentors were way too good. They didn’t spoon feed us, but guided us in the right terms and got us thinking.   

What did you think of the organisation of the event?  

I think everything was brilliant, the icebreakers were fun. I don’t have any complaints.  

How do you think ACM worked as a unit? 

You had people who asked us how it was going and were concerned about us and were preparing us on how to face things and it was very well organised. This event showed that you are an organised team.  

 At any point, did you feel like the pressure was too much? 

Yeah, the last round, you could see my face. I went there without much preparation and a half-completed PPT. I went and told the judges I will explain without the PPT and that needed guts.  

 Did you have fun? 

A lot, this is an event I am going to remember through the year and tell everyone about because this is an experience that I have never had. I was so excited throughout. The things I had to do attracted my attention so much and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  

Does this motivate you to participate in other ACM events? 

Yes, obviously, I’ll participate in every one of them. 

 

 

HARDWIRED WINNERS- Manash, Avinash, Junaid

How did you find the entire experience? 

It was good. The questions in the entrance test were pretty good. The logic gates questions were pretty challenging. 

 

What were the challenges you faced during the event? 

We first wrote the entrance test, which was for 45 minutes. Then we were called to the ECE department along with 3 to 4 other teams who had been selected. One of our team members had attended the seminar on Op Amps which had been held the previous evening. We were given a task to filter out frequencies, and that’s about it. 

Which was your favourite part of the event and what do you think we could improve on? 

Our favourite part was the implementation of the filtering question which we did in the ECE department as we don’t usually get to do these things in our regular theory classes. It was something different, and nice to do the practical part. It was our first time using function generators and oscilloscopes, and we wouldn’t have gotten that opportunity to work with otherwise as they are expensive pieces of equipment. The logical questions were pretty good, and it felt really good to solve them! As for what could be improved, we think there should be more teams in the final round. 

What motivated you throughout the event to do better? 

I had actually taken Electronics as my fourth subject in the PU boards, so I had already studied Op Amps and the other topics taught here. I’m generally interested in electronics and I have been passionate about electronics for the past 6 or 7 years and I’ve been working on it since then. I also knew the topics taught here but I had never used the equipment before, so that is probably what motivated me. 

At any point in time through the competition did you feel like you were under pressure? 

Yes, there was pressure during the test due to timing constraint. We weren’t told it was a time-based event, we were just asked to make the circuit and show it to them. After we finished, first out of the three teams present there, we were told that if any team came after us and did it faster they would be the winners. Had we known it was time-based we would have finished it faster. But the time constraint during the test was fine. 

What were your thoughts on the way the seniors conducted the event? 

One of the seniors we met during the final round of the event was really nice to us, and I thought he was a second-year student. I was surprised to hear that he was in final year. I thought seniors in 3rd and 4th year would be arrogant to the juniors, I didn’t expect them to be so nice.  

What did you learn from this event? 

Time management, for sure, and since we had already learnt electronics before the test it was very easy for us. We learnt how to use the oscilloscope and function generator, with probes, channel probes and everything. 

How did you think ACM worked as a team? Did we work well together?  

Yeah, we think so. We also participated in Jugaad (we came fourth I think) and a lot of effort was put into setting up the tracks.  

Which part of the event, working together as a team, changed you as a person? 

Team spirit, in Jugaad especially. We were up till 4:30 working on the car together, constantly trying to improve it. 

What is your takeaway from this event? 

It was a good experience. We had never worked like this in a team before. We got to know each other better, and of course, using the equipment in the ECE department. We faced problems while making the car, and we figured out how to solve them on our own. During the test as we all had to solve the same paper we had to have good coordination. One of our team mates actually had to go home, and we managed to coordinate with him as well over a video call, to show him our work on the car. 

Did this event inspire you to build something in the future? 

Yes, we are looking forward to working with some of the teams for Engineer. Probably in battle robots or the racing events. However, we heard as first years we won’t get funding for our own events, as clubs provide funding from the second year once we join them. As first years we can participate in smaller events like Trailblaze that don’t require much funding. 

 

 

JUGAAD WINNERS- Nakul, Manish, Krishna

How was the overall experience of the event? 

It was a really amazing experience. The quiz in the first round was pretty much what we have been doing throughout the years. However as soon as we progressed to round 2 and 3,  the real fun began. That’s where we actually came up and built something 

When we heard for the first time that we had to build rubber band propelled car we didn’t know what to do. We googled it and found out the mechanism. It seemed interesting and nice.

At first, we wanted to back out because we weren’t really into building a car. But then we looked up on YouTube and found out that it’s actually possible to make one. So, we built up a model and improvised on it. It was quite surprising to see everything turn out so well.  

 What would you say was the main challenge during the event? 

The main challenge was getting the car to go straight. Our’s was a pivot based system which tried to turn the car. We had to perfectly align it each time  or else even a small change would send the car off track. 

The terrain was a challenge- the Pavilion. We designed our car and ran it across the hostel floor, and it ran smoothly. But then we tried it at the Pavilion and watched as it turned, twisted, and then drifted. 

So we had to modify our model for the second round. We had to make it a pivot based system and then it went really well.  

So that was the defining moment of the competition? 

Yeah, especially for us.  

How was your experience as a team while building the car? What did you learn?  

Teamwork is very important. When we first started thinking about the car, our first thought was to let us think individually and see how many ideas we could come up with.

It’s very important that one idea does not prevail and overshadow the others. So, we decided to come up with different ideas. Then we sat together, discussed it, narrowing it down to the best type of car that we could make. That was a very important part of the entire experience.  

The qualities we learnt were respecting other ideas, taking things into account and much more.

 Do you guys think that this competition has changed you in some way? 

The most important lesson that I have learnt is that we cannot neglect even the smallest bits. In the case of this car whether it was the small straw, or the axle, or small angle difference it all mattered. 

We realised how difficult it is to actually build a car. We all think that you can just put 4 wheels and a body and its done. But there’s so much of physics involved, so much of precision too. 

That’s what we learnt.  

Are you guys inspired by this event to take your ideas forward? Do you plan to do something else in the future? 

Yeah especially for me because I was not the kind of guy who was into building stuff before this competition but now I have come up with this great model. Yeah, it has been very inspirational. 

It is definitely inspiring. At first, we weren’t interested as Nakul before mentioned but then after all the event got over we didn’t feel like ditching the car and we actually thought of like why not just make something cooler and we are thinking of preserving that whole thing and developing upon it. 

 

What do u think about the toughness of the competition? 

The competition as such we would think it’s easy but once u drive that and send the car across u realize how difficult it is especially in the second round we had a straight-line test. The record set was 220 cm. On the first try our rubber band got stuck in between and it wouldn’t move. It came up to 20 and stopped but in the second time we wounded it and it went up to 330. That was beautiful but then it went off-track and because of that they gave us another chance to try it again. This time it went up to 270 with a very small deviation. We were happy with our car and now are wondering how to improve.So we just rebuilt it from the ground and reinforced it and they told us that we could use cello tape which we didn’t use before. So, we reinforced the structure and made a sturdy car. 

 Do you have any comments about the other participants in the competition, the cars that other people came up with? 

Well most of them had the same basic structure. For everyone, the first preference is the internet. We go on YouTube, WhatsApp and check what’s there, but there was one peculiar car which we took notice of. The design, it looked like the Bat Mobile of the Dark Knight, only it had 3 wheels. The alignment of the wheels wasn’t good enough and the traction wasn’t good. But it looked really amazing. We realised that someone could be different.  

Are you guys satisfied with the result of the competition? 

Yes yes, definitely. We didn’t even expect to qualify for the final round. But we did and we are really really happy about it. 

 What are your ideas about the club ACM? Did you see the other events that the club conducted? 

Yeah, we took part in Cryptic and Hardwired as well. We qualified for all three. Hardwired was clashing with Cryptic and we were more interested in Cryptic so we chucked Hardwired. In Cryptic we reached the finals, we came third place. I guess this is the most that we have been involved in any event. 

For example, the Astronomy club event was a single event but in this, we had three different categories. We met with a lot more people and there were much more innovative and amazing ideas. 

There were a lot of people with similar ideas, that’s what I really liked. A good platform to express what you think, good people to discuss with. 

 Do you guys look forward to joining this club next year? 

Oh definitely. We were very happy when they said that since you have come first, you can use this as a reference. We really look forward to it.  

 

 

 

CRYPTIC WINNER- Prithvi Patil, Pranav S

 How was the entire experience of Cryptic?  

It was fun because the basic element involved in this competition was logic and we both love logic. The questions were really amazing and so was the experience!  

I heard that you guys did not know what Game of Thrones was when you attended the event. Was that a difficulty that you faced in the event? Was it a disadvantage of any sort?  

Actually, there was nothing related to the Game of Thrones episodes, other than the rounds which were named with references to the TV show.  

Of all the rounds, which round did you find the hardest?  

“Chaos is a Ladder” was the hardest round in the event which was a continuation of the second round. It involved bidding of soldiers and if we answered the question wrong, we would lose double of what we had bid.  

 What were the main challenges that you faced in the course of the event – right from the start till the end?  

Well, in the second round, there was some coding involved. It was a bit difficult for me.  

 So, you guys aren’t well versed in coding?  

Yeah. He’s (referring to his teammate) good at coding, but I’m not. On the whole, it was fun because where coding is involved, it is generally based on logic and that was quite amazing. We didn’t face much of a difficulty here, but we sure enjoyed it! 

 Were any of the rounds pressurising?  

Towards the end, when we were about to win, we were faced with a tiebreaker, which was a bit pressurising but it all worked out fine. The third round as a whole was a bit too pressurising for the both of us because it involved bidding and we couldn’t afford to bid too much because if we were to answer wrongly, then we would be out of the game. It mainly depended on luck and how fast one could answer the question.  

Did this event inspire you to take part in other events or build something on your own, something creative?  

Yeah, we were definitely inspired by the event and the ACM seniors even encouraged us to take part in all the upcoming events. We really enjoyed the events conducted here.  

How did ACM function as a team?  

They were very well coordinated and functioned smoothly. They were very friendly and spoke to us a lot. They didn’t show disinterest and took a lot of effort into organising it well. The questions set by them were just too good.  

Was there something in the event that changed you as a person? Did you learn something new from the events?  

Actually, we learnt about the general competition here at NITK, based on the questions, because the peer group competition is the biggest challenge we face here. We learnt to work as a group, with him suggesting answers to some questions and me answering some of them on my own. It was our teamwork which paid off at the end. We became aware of the real competition here, at NITK because compared to other colleges, these premier institutes provide a bigger stage to compete on, and we got to know where exactly we stand among the students at NITK, which was the best part.  

 Is there any part in the event that you think could be changed or better organised?  

One of the issues we faced in the event was that we were asked to report at 2:30 p.m but the program began an hour later. Another issue was that, if a team was leading right up to the end of the second round, they would still have a high chance of losing in the last round. Based on the capability of the person, that shouldn’t be the case. “May the best team win” is the idea which should be adopted.  

 What about the part where you had to gamble a portion of soldier army?  

I did not like this part of the event. Everything else was fine. At the least, a buzzer round or something of that sort could be used for the final deciding round, which would let the best team win. But that was not the case.  

 What was your favourite part of the event?  

What we liked a lot was the part where we could ask questions to any other team. So, we chose the group which did not do well, so we kind of got more points. Since they gave first preference to the leading team to choose which team would be answering, we got the first preference every time, which we effectively used to target the team with the lowest points.  

 Are you satisfied with the results of the competition? What do you have to say about the performance of the other participants in this competition? Was there any point in the game where you thought that maybe another team was getting ahead of you?  

No, there was nothing of this sort because we were leading right from the start. I personally feel that the top three prizes were awarded to the deserving teams. I’m not sure about the fourth, fifth, and sixth positions though since they were not disclosed to us.