Techvaganza is an annual national level Technical Festival
of National Institute of Technology, Srinagar. The fest is an attempt to make
students, acquainted with the current
and futuristic technologies. Techvaganza was inaugurated by the director NIT
Prof Rajat Gupta. The guests of honour during inauguration were Prof Tej Pratap
Singh, VC SKUAST and Mr John Samuels,
CPMG J&K Circle. The festival
include workshops, guest lectures, LAN gaming, technical quiz, release of
inaugural issue of IIM (Indian Institute of metal) –NIT chapter journal ,
competitive events based on various branches of engineering, and social
awareness programs. The main technical events were Robotrix, Botorace,
Structrite, mad for CAD, metalomania, circuit bizz, traffic planning etc.
Workshops were conducted on Aeromodelling, building design, scilab, linux and
android etc. Dr Arvind Bharti from DRDO, DR UK Chaterjee and Er Pugazhenthy delivered guest lectures. There were lot of
fun and creativity events. There were social events like career counseling for
secondary and higher secondary schools, panel discussion on women empowerment.
On 22 August the
Director NIT Prof Rajat Gupta inaugurated the Techvaganza 2013, with
welcome speech at Aerotrix workshop where students were taught basic principles
of aeromodelling and designing and fabrication of wings of biplanes. The
Aerotrix workshop and the workshop ‘Civil simplified’ were conducted by IIT
Kanpur alumni at very subsidized rate. It was the first of its kind workshop in
North India. In ANDROID workshop Data
handelling and button handelling were taught. Basic hello world application was
created. In Robotic workshop Basic robotics theory, assembly of parts of robots
and writing basic programmes and flashing it on ROBOT were taught. Tutorial on Phython and LINUX
were conducted.
During Techvaganza,
student chapters of Institute of Metals(IIM)
and Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) were formed at NIT Srinagar.
The inaugural issue of the journal of IIM student affiliate chapter was also
released by the Director. Guest lectures were delivered by Dr. UK
Chatterji on metals, Er. L Pugazhenthy
on careers in metallurgy, Mr. Manoranjan Ram
on IIM related to metals, Dr. Arvind Bharti on overview of DRDO and about planning and
management.
Many schools
and colleges participated in the fest. Specially the students from SSM, IUST,
KU, and Amar Singh college participated in large numbers. Govt College Of Engg And Tech, Jammu, MIET,
Jammu, MBS, Jammu, Sankethika Institute of Management and Technology,
Vishakhapatnam, Lakshmi Narain college of technology, Bhopal, Kongu Engg
college, Perundurai, UIET, Punjab, Punjab University were among the
Institutions who came all the way to Kashmir valley to be a part of Techvaganza
2013.
Under social awareness program (Social Awareness and Youth) career
counseling on exams like Olympiads and kvpy were discussed by Dr S. Rubab of
NIT Srinagar. Mr Zahoor Akram project coordinator of directorate of
lifelong learning, KU discussed on skill
development courses. Mr Sajad Mir of BHSS Nigeen discussed about Children
Science Congress. For career counseling, students from
BHSS Batmaloo, BHSS Hazratbal, KV and St. Pauls School participated in large
numbers. Under the aegis of SAY an awarenes program on Man Bear conflict was
conducted on third day of the festival by Ms Alia Mir and Mr. Tahir Ghazanfar
of SOS Wildlife a not for profit organization. Mr MA Tak, Wildlife conservator
of Kashmir also graced the occasion. Mr Tahir Ghazanfar urged the NIT students
to provide technical inputs to control Man Bear conflict. On final day of the
festival a gender equity workshop was conducted by Dr S Rubab and Dr Kowser
Majid of NIT Srinagar. Dr Suraya of Medical Unit NIT and Dr Rana Hashmi of KU
also took part in panel discussion. Ms. Zarqa of NIT elaborated on the field
work conducted by the volunteers of SAY to gather information on gender issues in less privileged communities
of the city.
Apart from
various technical events, there were technical fun events including treasure
hunt, LAN Gaming, photography, video journal, skulk rider, Rangoli, a minute to
win it and many more.
State Bank
Of India, the Tribune, Gulzar group of institutions, 92.7 big FM, Aircel, sci
fi labs, Technophilia, Cadd centre, College khabar, Twenty19 and Honda were among
the sponsors of the festival.
Most of the
events were won by NIT students except few. In smack down (an event of
robotics) and LAN Gaming UIET, Punjab won the 1st prize. Sankethika Institute
won in maglev (mechanical) and arduous(robotics). Structurite and brick wall
erection of civil gained a lot of attention both from students of valley and
outside J&K. In paper and poster presentation, 1st position was bagged by NIT sgr
and second by students from Andhra Pradesh. The Director and Dean, students welfare gave away the
prizes to all the event winners during Valedictory session. The best part of
the Techvaganza was that it has been conceived and managed by students. They
were ably supported by coordinator Er. Mushtaq Rather and the other faculty
members.
