Engineer (technical fest)

Engineer
Type Non-Profit Student Organization
Genre Technical
Founded 2005
Place Surathkal, India
Institute National Institute of Technology Surathkal
Website engineer.org.in

Engineer is the Annual Technical Symposium of NITK Surathkal and is one of the largest of its kind in India. Started in 2005 as an amalgamation of many technical fests held in NITK Surathkal by its various student clubs, Engineer has grown in leaps and bounds over the years. It is held over 4 days in the second half of the month of October and has consistently attracted participants from all over India. A Penrose Triangle is used as its logo with the tagline 'Think.Create.Engineer'.

In its previous editions, Engineer brought organizations such as CERN, MIT Media and Bell labs while catering to a participation pool of over 6000 students from 150 colleges across 65 countries.[1]

Many technical and entrepreneurship events are held during the fest, including quizzes, Coding marathons, RC car racing and the like. These are broadly classified into various Branch Events. Apart from this, Workshops in a variety of fields are also held. To highlight the social responsibility of Engineers, social/environmental awareness initiatives are undertaken under the banner of SCE (Socially Conscious Engineering). Technites is another major attraction, showcasing the beauty of technology after dark.

Guest speakers of past editions have included Richard Stallman, Sam Pitroda, Dr. Devi Shetty, Sir Anthony James Leggett, Ankit Fadia and other personalities.[2]

History and growth

Engineer '06 in 2006 included paper presentation competitions, project presentations, Shrishti, where participants are required to apply engineering for the greater good of society, robotics events (Perfect Machine, Automata), hacking contests, programming contests, design problems, and workshops and seminars.[3][4]

Engineer '07

was conducted on a larger scale and witnessed international participation with participation from the Gulf along with participants from major colleges across India. The online events drew programmers from universities in Europe, Americas and Asia. The robotics events were appreciated and well contested. The workshop conducted by Indian Underwater Robotics Society (IURS) was unique to Engineer. The four-day event included video conferences with Kevin Warwick, Ehud Shapiro, Nobel Laureate John C. Mather and Bjarne Stroustrup.

Engineer '08

Engineer in 2008, in line with the ongoing trend, was conducted on an even grander scale. It had Green Engineering as its theme, where technical progress is considered keeping in mind sustainability and protection of the environment.

Engineer '09

For the first time, it features Impetus, where robotics events' preliminary rounds were held at a venue outside the institute's campus, in cities of Hyderabad, Bangalore and Pune.

Engineer '10

Engineer in 2010, included video lectures with Vic Hayes, Peter Norvig amongst the usual events.

Engineer '13

This edition featured a totally different publicity technique with students performing a freeze mob. Other highlights of this edition of Engineer include the Entertaining 3D mapping show held for the first time, the 3D painting of the Engineer logo by students . The planting of trees around the campus by SCE under Green Kalam Movement was another highlight.

Engineer '14

Engineer '14 incorporated a large number of main shows, than the usual trend of having only a single main show. The band Raghu Dixit Project and Sunburn also performed during the nights.

Engineer '15

This year Engineer was held in a much grander scale on 8–11 October, as this was its 10th anniversary. EngiConnect, a science exhibition for schools in the South Canara region will also be held during this edition.

Flag ship events

Blueprint

Blueprint is a paper presentation event. Blueprint attracts some people from all over the country and gives them a platform to put their ideas forth in front of an experienced panel of judges.

E-Pitch

E-Pitch is the flagship entrepreneurship event which provides a platform for students to put forth their business ideas.[5] [6]

Branch Specific Events

Mechanical Events

This has some of the major crowd pulling events.These events usually have some problem statements and restrictions for bots. Robowars is a major event held under mechanical events. The RC car competition Velocity also is a major attraction.Other events under this committee are Perfect Machine, Proteus, Blueprint etc. Proteus is an event with the objective to fabricate a bot that could travel along a specified length of the tank (which constituted the arena) and shoot a jet of water that covered a minimum horizontal range. Once the bot satisfied these qualifying criteria, the participating bots had to shoot a maximum of three targets placed at gradually increasing heights placed at different distances within 6 minutes.

Computer Events

Inscription, which is the Computer events’ flagship online coding event, boasts of participation from over 47 countries and teams from Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. Marathon is a scripting and basic programming event spanning the entire festival. Android apps development, code error hunting and developing bots to play a variant of pacman are some other events/competitions coming under computer events.[7]

Civil Events

Colossus-a civil event

There are many events like Nirvahana, Architect, Collosus which are basically related to Civil Engineering concepts. These events are designed to test whether you can apply your mind to solve some Civil engineering problems of the real world and build stable structures. Events are Quick CAD, Architect, Colossus, Nirvahana, Fantasticity, Mindbend, Blueprint etc.[8] Colossus is an event of civil engineering which made bridge designing a reality by letting builders design and make a real model bridge that was to be tested according to the given conditions.

Meta Events

The material science committee has a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) expo, showcasing a working demonstration of the high-tech equipment. MetaMagic is an open exhibition to show the wonders of the materials around us. Apart from this Quizzes are also held by the committee.

Tronix Events

Symphony - Musical Fountains and Trailblazer - Competition for line follower bots are major attractions under tronix events. The Automata is another event by the tronix committee based on Image processing. An overhead camera provided the participants with a string of images of the arena using which they had to figure out the shortest way to the end and make the bot go there. Any dictionary you pick up will define Trailblazer as an inventor, a pioneer, or a person who makes a new track through wild country. But here at ENGINEER in NITK, it translates to a line following bot.

SCE Sky Lanterns
SCE Sky Lanterns
Planting trees around the campus under the green kalam movement
Planting trees around the campus under the Green Kalam movement
SCE initiatives

Other events

SCE-Socially Conscious Engineer

The Social initiative of Engineer, this usually has students taking up social/environmental initiatives to spread awareness about the responsibility of Engineers towards the society. In the 2013 edition, students planted trees around the campus under the Green Kalam Movement. Sky Lantern, organised by SCE is a visual spectacle.

Astro Events

This includes a group of events held by the astronomy enthusiasts of NITK. This includes Quizzes, Talks by personalities and Starry nights - learn about various stars and other heavenly bodies as you look at them under the night sky.

Workshops

Held with the intention of expanding the knowledge of students beyond what is learnt in classrooms, previously held workshops include Ethical Hacking, 3D photography, Android App Development, Humanoid Robotics, Augmented reality etc.

Gaming and Freefall

Gaming events include games like NFS, Counter Strike, FIFA and DOTA as participants battle each other to show their gaming supremacy. Freefall includes the informal contests held in Engineer. With fun and games all around, participants head over here to relax and have fun.

Technites

Showcases the fun and brilliance of technology after dark. Witness your favorite android games come alive at Technites. Also featuring several events like Blitzkrieg/Laser Tag, Megapixel- The larger than life avatar of Tetris among others. Apart from this PyroShows, Laser shows, 3D mapping shows also are crowd pullers. The Technites main show also witnesses street performers enthralling the crowd.

Sponsors

Corporations provide sponsorship and conduct workshops during the three-day event. Previous sponsors and mentors included Taxi For Sure, GE, Indian Oil Corporation Limited, AMD, Tata Motors, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Reliance industries, Dell, Ansys, Novell, McAfee, the Indian Space Research Organization, Thoughtworks and Biocon

The major sponsors for Engineer 2007 were Hindustan Construction Co Ltd. (main sponsor), Thermax, GE, Accenture, Microsoft, IBM, Intuit , MRPL, ICICI, Sun Microsystems, Perot Systems, Exeter, Infosys, Nvidia. 2005 included Tata Steels, MICO, Wipro, Videocon, Larsen and Toubro, Microsoft, TCS, Quest Global, SLK, Novell, Tractor India Ltd., AMD, Alliance, Juno, Celstream and others.[9]

References

  1. ↑
  2. ↑ Workshops, Lectures, Robotics
  3. ↑ Engineer
  4. ↑ "Students from 40 institutions vie for honours at Engineer 2006," The Hindu
  5. ↑
  6. ↑
  7. ↑ Computers
  8. ↑
  9. ↑ "`Engineer 2005' gets under way at NITK," The Hindu
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