IIT Bombay’s Techfest 2013 kicks off tomorrow!

Promotion: Techfest is the Annual Science and Technological Festival of IIT Bombay. Being the Asia’s largest Science and Technological Festival and patronised by UNESCO, Techfest is proud to bring to you its sixteenth edition from 3rd  to 5th January 2013. Techfest 2012 saw a footfall of more than 92,000 students with over 25,000 students from India and abroad participating in various events. From challenging Competitions to Lectures by noted luminaries, from incredible workshops to fun-filled O-zone, Techfest 2013 will have everything to conquer one’s imagination. With more than 150 events spread over the 3 days and total prize money of over 17 lakhs, Techfest has always offered the best to all its participants as well as the visitors.

Around 10,000 Pune college and school students are interested in coming to Techfest this year and this time, Techfest has received huge and increasing participation from Pune schools.

Lined up this year are around 50 exhibits from over 20 countries from the famed HIRO robot, Xachikoma from France, MIT Media lab, AirBurr from Switzerland and many more which will bring to life the essence of robotics and the basic sciences.

SOINN based HIRO Robot(Hasegawa Lab, Tokyo): This robot can think, learn and act by itself using artificial intelligence. It is being developed by the Hasegawa Group at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. The robot can think in a way similar to humans, because it can make educated guesses and decisions based on its past experiences and knowledge.

HOVIS Eco(Metal Mate, India): One of the most advanced humanoids in the world today, it is a home multiplayer robot for different functions with Interactive mobile content monitor. It will be acting autonomously with the crowd around doing various stunts like exercising, dancing etc. to impress the humans! Hovis can be used for monitoring remote health care, for example, measuring the heart rate. It will be displaying more than 5000 features at Techfest 2013! 

XACHIKOMA(France): The Xachikoma is a cute SUV-sized mobile robot, it has four articulated legs terminated with wheels as well as an articulated head. Their design is largely inspired by jumping spiders and the way they move, their high-piched voice and their innocent artificial intelligence makes them probably the most expressive and likeable non-humanoid robot.Xachikoma won Creativity Award winner in French cup and participated in Eurobot-2011 Finals. 

MIT Media Lab(MIT, USA): NETRA, a project of Camera Culture MIT Media Lab introduces a portable and inexpensive solution for estimating refractive errors in the human eye.The system capable of computing the refractive error for myopia, hypermetropia and astigmatism. Till date, NETRA has received many awards like Vodafone America’s Foundation Wireless Innovation Project Winner, MIT Global Challenge Award, LAUNCH Health Innovation Award.

AirBurr(Switzerland): A robot designed specifically to study the physical interaction between flying robots and their environment. The design of AirBurr takes inspiration from insects which regularly collide with obstacles and manage to recover. The robot can control its own speed like an insect and can understand the layout of the location by colliding with other objects.

Keio XLab(Keio University, Japan): The Keio Xlab from Tokyo will be showcasing four major technological innovations at Techfest viz. NeonDough, Techtile toolkit, Living Floccus and Walking Tree.

Ø WalkingTree- WalkingTree is a walking botanical robot. A user collects branches and plants from nature, and attach them to the robot’s pot and legs. When the robot reaches a sunny place, its solar cells charge and the plants will start to photosynthesize. WalkingTree generates electricity by solar energy as if it were a moving plant.

Description- Militaries around the world use Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or UAVs for routine surveillance and to carry out basic attack strategies. Civilian applications include tasks from border protection to search and rescue. One such prototype was seen in the famous movie “3 Idiots”. Cutting-edge research is continuing to increase the viability of quadrotors by making advances in multi-craft communication, environment exploration, and maneuverability.

Utility- The potential utility of the UAV is Aerial Surveillance and Intelligence, Environmental Assessment, Traffic Congestion Analysis, HAZMAT Operations, Project Management, Advanced RC Flight Research, The Ideal Aerial Photography and Videography Platform

NAO ROBOT(Aldebaran Robotics,  France): Aldebaran Robotics, the world leader in humanoid robotics , are going to exhibit their robots for the first time in India @ Techfest .It is capable of expressing anger, fear, sadness, happiness, excitement and pride and will get upset if the human fails to comfort it or when confronted by a stressful situation that they cannot cope with. The Nao was used in RoboCup 2008 and 2009, and the NaoV3R was chosen as the platform for the SPL at RoboCup 2010. In the summer of 2010, Nao made global headlines with a synchronized dance routine at the Shanghai Expo in China.Apart from this ,over 2,000 NAOs are in use throughout the world as research and educational tools in 45 countries.

VINTAGE CARS EXHIBITIONS

By- VCCCI, Mumbai

Description- A special exhibition of vintage and classical cars will be displayed at Techfest 2013 in association with The Vintage & Classic Car Club of India (VCCCI). The club has one of the largest collection of vintage and classic cars including brands likeRolls Royce, Bentley, Mercedes, Buick, Packard, Ford, Morris, Chrysler, Dodge, Austin, etc.

The VCCCI is affiliated to FIVA (Federation Internationale Vehicules Anciens) – which is the international body for vintage cars.

Lecture Series

Ø Amartya Sen(Nobel prize, Economic Sciences, 1998)

·         Helped to create the United Nations Human Development Index.

·         In2012, he became the first non-American recipient of the National Humanities Medal

·         Will be delivering the prestigious G. L. Mehta Memorial lecture hosted by the Board of Directors at IIT Bombay 

Ø Rakesh Sharma( First Indian Astronaut)

·         Conferred with the Ashok Chakra and Hero of the Soviet Union awards

·         Spent almost 8 days in space and did lifesciences and materials processing experiments, including silicium fusing tests

·         He will enlighten us on ”Should India Invest In A Manned Space Programme?”

Ø Montek Singh Ahluwalia( Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission)

·         First Director of the independent Evaluation Office at the International Monetary Fund

·         Memberofthe influential Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty

·         Awarded Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilianaward

Ø Jocelyn Goldfein( Director of Engineering, Facebook)

·         Holds a bachelors degree in Computer Science from Stanford University

·         Responsible for key Facebook product features like news feed, search, and photos.

Over the years, the stage has played host to the parkour team from the sets of Casino Royale. Tony Chapek, an interactive illusionist from the States; Mark Nizer, arguably the best juggler on Earth; Pep Bou, a world-renowned theatrical bubble artist,the Pa-li-Tchi fire dancers and Pyrotechnicians. It offers entertainment, but with a flicker of tech. Here are some of them:

Ø BLACKLUX- A fusion of hip-hop and wireless light technology, the act will be an LED glow dance from LuxyBoyz. This group from Taiwan has featured across the world’s most watched TV shows and glared across the most happening festivals.

Ø PYROTERRA- This is a Czech art group dealing with juggling, fire and light show, acrobatics. Their art has burnt its way through Czech Got Talent besides shows for NASA, BMW, TOYOTA, Schwarzkopf and a host of other top-brass clients.

Ø FREESYLE AIR- Being a group of 4 stunt cyclers right from the streets of France, they are regarded as one of Europe’s finest and most extreme entertainers. They competed and excelled at France Got Talent, receiving worldwide acclaim. Being telecasted on the Discovery Channel’s World Riderz, they have already had their fair share of exposure revving up all this time before unleashing themselves on India.

Ø LORDS OF GRAVITY- Lords of Gravity performs an extremely spectacular and innovative basketball slam dunk show. They’ve demonstrated a successful attempt to set a new world record for the “Farthest Basketball Slam Dunk”, at the NBA Europe Live Tour, in Berlin, 2012.

Ø D-VA- The performance will feature popular trend of dance performances and an innovative combination of avant-garde technology, such as cold pyrotechnics, LED lights, lasers and projection. The act is being performed for the first time in India.

 With a prize money of 25 Lakhs, we have following competitions with over 25,000 participants already registered:

Ø International Robotics Challenge- We bring forth the International Robotics Challenge, a universal and common platform for all the Indians as well as International participants to compete and excel. The qualifying rounds for IRC will be held in all participating countries – Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, UAE. Winners of each of these country legs will get direct entry into: International Robotics Challenge Grand Finale to be held at Techfest 2013, India. Total prizes worth INR 4,50,000 to be won

Ø TechOlympics- Teams would first compete in the TechOlympics: Qualifiers at their respective zone viz. Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore, Indore, Jaipur, Visakhapatnam, Mumbai at the 4 technology skill sets we are testing. The genres are: Line following, Aqua Robotics Aeromodelling, Coding. Cash prizes worth INR 4,00,000 to be won.

Ø Robotron – Total Cash prizes worth INR 1 Lakh to be won

Ø Dimensions- With 4 competitions, this segment has cash prizes worth INR 85,000

Ø Xtreme Machines- Following are some competitions with ferocious robots.

·         Blitzkrieg- Cash prizes worth INR 40,000 to be won.

·         Full Throttle-Unleashed- Cash prizes worth INR 55,000.

·         Robowars-Fatal Combat- One of the most famous and talked about event of any technical festival, Robowars will be giving away cash prizes worth INR 80,000 to the winner

Ø Code Czar- The segment includes competitions dealing with coding and hacking with a total prize money of INR 1.25 Lakh

OZONE(The fun side of Techfest)

Ø International Artists- Here are the some major artists who will be performing at Techfest 2013:

·         Zlwin Magic(Mentalist from Malaysia)

·         Fabrizio Roselli( Juggler, Actor and clown from Italy)

·         JohnMan( living statue performer from Berlin, . Johnman won the World Cup in Holland in 2010(World Statues Festival))

·         Edison Lim(Malaysia’s Youngest Professional Illusionist)

Ø SILENT DISCO- Being introduced for the very first time in any college festival in India, Techfest, IIT Bombay launches the ‘Silent Disco’ to rock the party. The Silent Disco will be open for all and for no cost.

Ø Techfest National Open Quiz 2.0(TNOQ)- TNOQ is also the biggest student-organised quiz both in terms of moolah offered as reward and in terms of student participations. Qualifiers were held in Delhi, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Jaipur, Pune, Ahmedabad and Mumbai. Grand Finale prizes worth INR 1,00,000 and overall prizes worth INR 2,00,000

Some of the valuable workshops to be held at Techfest 2013 are:

Ø HACKTRICKS- Techfest brings you Hack-Tricks workshop, teaching ethical hacking. Level 1 will be conducted on January 3 and 4 and Level 2 on January 5

Ø GameDuino- This workshop is about using Arduino to create a gaming console and demonstrate the principles of modularity in electronics using the Arduino platform

Ø AutoWriting- Techfest brings you this unique workshop teaching you to build an autonomous mobile XY-plotting robot that can draw patterns limited only to the creativity of the designer

Ø Android App Development-Get a chance to enter the world of android app development and  insights into industry standards in this field. Learn android app development here at Techfest

This is an overview of the various events that are going to be held during the festival.