write-up**Update#3** GYAAN!!

we need pieces for the site-- complete with the introduction.
however if you just submit the rules only we shall take it that you dont want to write the introduction and invitation-- which is quite the bummer -- since this is the only fun part!!
so try to complete your submission. Debsankha is doing an excellent (thats what he tells me + i hope ) job of designing the website and things are looking up.
further updates would be posted on this blog. as of now, we plan to  set up the site without announcing a final date and take in the list of participants to inflict ourselves on the sponsors..... and that my friends is the stratagem till now! hope we get DELL to put up a little stall here so that they can finance BIG! i think a survey of laptop brands in the hostel should help. any further suggestions to the financial committee maybe made in the comment section to this post! -- Çau

write-up**Update#2** paper presentations for paradoxical situations:: from amit anand

The name of the pseudo paper presentation would be

Antuitive

There must have been days when you would have questioned the mighty ways of this universe. When you felt so deeply cheated by the so called "Laws of Nature", that you felt like changing them for good. Well if that is the way you feel, don't bang your head on the wall. Instead try and change the world itself.

Antutive let's you vent your anger and redefine the way this world works. You can bend the laws of nature and try and figure out how different would the world have been. Put your creative thoughts in the form of a presentation and convince a set of docile people.

This would be the small heading. Then put a small read more link and write the following -

Antutive is a team event in which you can put up a paper presentation just as real life scientists with a slight twist. The topic of the presentation would be some fictitious situation which is anti intuitive like "If Gravity were repulsive". The team would comprise of two members. The participants dont have to come prepared. The topics would be supplied a few hours before the actual event. The topics would not require any great deal of prior knowledge. Common sense and a bit of creativity is all you need. All you have to do is the following -

1. Sit down and think about the topic given. You can refer books, internet or any other source. You will be provided all these by the event organising committee.
2. Prepare a 10 minute presentation in whatever form you like. The presentation need not be about how complex equations get violated. It could be more about how it could affect the world around us.
3. Both the participants should actively share the 10 minutes allotted to them.
4. They would be asked a few simple questions about their work.

And on predictable lines, prizes would be distributed on a reckless basis so that everyone's creativity is honoured.

PS- I LOVE IT!

write-up**Update#1** Crime Scene Investigation:: from harshit lakhotia

what is it ?
Crime scene investigation, as the name suggest is all about solving a crime case. Solving the case here means that at the end of the event u have to come up with a case file comprising of how evreything happened i.e/ u have to tell us the whole plot,motive behind the crime and identify the criminal.

How the event will take place?

The event is broken in two parts 
Prelims : This is the qualifying round for the teams taking part in the event.It will comprise of an online exam. This round will also help us to publicize the event.
Written exam comprises of two sectionS :-
Section A consists of a hypothetical case.U have to solve the case.
Section B consists of a questionNaire. This will judge the knowledge of the team about the current as well as the renowned criminal cases which flashed the newspaper, about the basics which detective must have IS, knowledge about some of the renowned fictional characters such as Sherlock Holmes and some basic inorganic and organic chemistry and criminal phsycology.
This round will have 25% of the weightage of the total score.

Investigation Round : In this round we will provide teams with a case file comprising of the case history and bio data of the prime suspects. This case file will consist of every relevant information about the case.Then the teams will be taken to the spot they will begin thier investigation from. They have to unfold the mystery within the stipulated timeperiod.
The investigation will not require any kind of instrument other than provided on site.

Teams will be given the Marks on 
1)Successful identification of the criminal(s).
2)The complete description of the story i.e. How the murder took place and what was the motive behind it.
3)How do u find that this/these person(s) were the only criminal(s) and other suspects were not?

Unconventional music

Well, One of the events, as decided in the meetings was a musical competition competetion where the music had to be made by unconventional means. Since I am in charge of this event, I have decided on the rules and procedures of this event. There will be a panel of judges( expectedly some of our professors) who will mark the participant groups on three categories:
1. Music (aesthetically)
2. Innovativeness( how unconventional is the instrument)
3. Their clarity in explaining the science behind the instrument.

The participants can be a group consisting of 1 to 5 members. There will be no bar for using any instruments, except for the fact that if someone comes up with something which is no way an innovative instrument, he/she will be marked less.

I am yet to make the video for the site that will demonstrate what kind of innovative instruments we are talking about. However a brief write-up for the website is already submitted to Debshankhya Manik, who is currently taking the responsibility of managing the website.

programming abstract

Introduction: Computers they say, are a class of mindless minotaurs - ones that need their instructions as much as we do their raw power. We form a symbiosis, one that has evolved into the Open Source Era today, and all the free APIs that let applications interact among  themselves. The programmers are our interpreters in this transaction - they are the ones who are the ringmasters to these modern beasts. It is a skill that involves training your mind to think algorithmically, and translate real world tasks, simple or complex, to the languages that machines understand.
    Format of the Competition: There will be 3 preliminary rounds spread over two days.  The Prelims are the shortlisting process whereby one is supposed to solve a given problem within a given time. The first problem we faced was that one would expect that such a venture would be stifled to its very spirit if we restricted this to some programming languages only. One of the ways out was that we create a programming language of our own, one that provided certain functions only and one had to solve the problem at hand using them. Or we could pose the problem as a mathematical dataset; that was  to be parsed by the program and then a output had to be generated such that it is free of the language as well. We chose the latter.
For example, the following question might be asked:
"Geologists sometimes divide an area of land into different regions based on where rainfall flows down to. These regions are called drainage basins.

Given an elevation map (a 2-dimensional array of altitudes), output the coordinates (row and column numbers respectively, in that order), subject to the following rules.

* From each cell, water flows down to at most one of its 4 neighboring cells.
* For each cell, if none of its 4 neighboring cells has a lower altitude than the current cell’s, then the water does not flow, and the current cell is called a sink.
* Otherwise, water flows from the current cell to the neighbor with the lowest altitude.
* In case of a tie, water will choose the first direction with the lowest altitude from this list: North, West, East, South."
-- reference Google Code Jam 2009 Qualification Round (slightly modified).
so given the following input
    3,3
    12,23,56
    65,43,67
    23,56,76
the answer is [1,1], [3,1], sinc these are the points where there exists a local minimum of the kind described above.
    Rules:    1. Each team may have 3 members or less.
        2. Any programming language may be used as long as it can read and output text formats of the kind mentioned above.
        3. Teams may choose between two sets of input datasets- small or large. If they write the program correctly within the stipulated time period and choose to operate on the 'small' dataset and do so correctly, they get 10 points. On succesfully operating on the large dataset they would, however, receive 20 points. Failure to execute 'small' and 'large' datasets correctly would however cost the team zero and 20 points respectively. So choose wisely!

my conversation with soumitra sir

> 1. which institutes are we required to invite? we shall finalise the list
> after we add some more on the basis of interest generated in facebook. But
> this initial list is required because we soon plan to send this invitation
> to the concerned colleges.

You may primarily contact the good colleges from Kolkata, Guwahati,
Cuttack, Ranchi, and Patna. This may include
Presidency, Jadavpur, St.Xaviers, Narendrapur, etc., from Kolkata and
the ones like Ravenshaw college from Cuttack. I don't know the names
of the good colleges in Patna and Guwahati. Students from these places
will be able to give the names.  There are some reasonably good
colleges in the district towns also. This includes the K.N. College of
Berhampur, the Midnapur college, Bankura Christian college, Jalpaiguri
A.C. college, etc. You may include them.

> 2.we need a list of suppliers and their phone number who do business with
> iiser, since we need to contact them for sponsorship as well.
> 3.i have heard that BCKV has an auditorium close to our part of the
> campus, can we hire it? if we do, we need electric supply and water in
> there.

Please meet Mr. Shibnarayan Pal at the administrative building. He
will be able to give you the addresses of companies doing business
with IISER. But my experience at IIT tells that soft drink companies,
FM radio stations and private TV channels should also be targetted.

There is an auditorium at BCKV, where our cultural programme of the
2009 was held. We can get it for the purpose of the programme.

Please also consult the other members of the Students' Activities Committee.

-- 
Soumitro Banerjee
IISER-Kolkata
Mohanpur Campus, Nadia-741252
India

note: ">"-ed lines indicate my questions - debanjan

science exhibition abstract

heres what sonali sent us::

i'd say you also send in your respective abstracts!
the science exhibition.
FUN FILLED and INNOVATIVE.
This is the arena for science freaks to show their passion, for others it
may be some sort of a junkyard wars, or techno exhibition. You may be into
chemistry showing magic shows or into bio decoding the magic of life. It
may be something we see everyday put in a new way or some traditional idea
you think the world should know about. Or it may simply be something out
of the box, something imaginative, something crteative all based on the
scientific theories and phenomena we talk about.
If you think you can come up with simple yet marketable ideas,then just
walk up the ramp and be ready to strutt your stuff. You may be surprised
by what all you are capable of.
JUDGEMENT CRITERIA.
two rounds,
1. a presentation by the student on his or her idea and exhibit.
2. Questions by the judges and the audience.
Materials allowed.
A powerpoint presentation of max 5 slides
Printed charts.

I think we have to set up some presentations of our own which will keep on
showing various scientific experiments conducted by us itself in our
laboratory.
We will be needing lots of lcd projectors and screens if we want to have
parallel sessions.

ok..and the competion will have two categories..maybe
1.routine(written in a more flattering way)
2.innovative.
and a third one will be required depending on the number of entries.
AN online thing has to be organised requesting entries and a small write
up so that we can group them into categories. and they have to send their
requirements also so that electrical wirings and projectors can be set up.

comments activated

we had been having problems with commenting, yes!
but the problem has been resolved.. it was a corrupt  template

Theme for Documentary Screening

Everyone is requested to suggest a theme for "Documentary Screening" event which would also be the name for this event. A theme should be such which can cover all the areas of science..viz Chem, Bio, Earth Science , Physics or Maths i.e. more of a general theme..