Shaastra
Encyclopedia
Shaastra is the annual technical festival of Indian Institute of Technology Madras
(IITM), Chennai, India. The Sanskrit
word ‘Shaastra’ means science and the festival accordingly consists of various science and technology based competitions, symposia, lectures, video conferences, exhibitions, demonstrations and workshops. The festival is traditionally held over four days and four nights during the last week of September and the first week of October. It has so far seen ten editions, having started in its current avatar in the year 2000. Shaastra attracts participation from all over India, and seeks to provide collegiate students with a platform to showcase their scientific and engineering talents. Shaastra is entirely student managed and holds the distinction of being the first such event in the world to be ISO 9001:2000 certified for implementing a Quality Management System
.
and on his behest, several students came together and staged 'Pragmaa', a technical festival, in 1997, and then in 1999. Despite the inclusion of various technical events including tech quizzes, demonstrations and paper presentations that attempted to get participants interested in applying their technical knowledge, it remained low-key http://iitmbook.pbworks.com/Chapter-4%3A-Activities-on-Campus.
Following the 1999 edition, a group of individuals decided to stage a bigger technical festival that made tech cool and generated interest and enthusiasm among all IITians. This group, propelled by different motivations, took upon the title of 'Core Group' (a practice which continues till today) and engaged themselves in planning and organizing the festival. After deciding on the name Shaastra, and the events - different kinds of quizzes, demonstrations, lectures - and some food and fun, they convinced the rest of the campus that this was worth their time and they should help in the organization. They decided to have it in March, after the excitement of Saarang
had died down, but before people started getting nervous about the end-semester exams http://www.shaastra.org/smriti/memoir.
Students applied for and took on the role of Coordinators for various events. A set of colleges around the country was targeted and the amount required to run the event was raised through sponsorships. The first edition was thus planned and took place starting March 9, 2000 http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/2000/02/23/stories/09230461.htm.
Aerofest
A relatively new mini festival at Shaastra that has been introduced to celebrate the achievements of the students who have dedicated their time for designing and developing innovations in flying.
Coding
A number of events based on coding feature prominently in Shaastra. The common ones include:
Design
This group of events involves engineering tasks that require innovative yet viable solutions. Some of the common ones are:
Design and Build
These events test the practical skill and workmanship of the participants in addition to their theoretical knowledge and designing abilities. The common ones include:
This is also claimed to be the biggest event of Shaastra
Lectures and Video Conferences
Shaastra draws various distinguished people in various technical fields from all over the world for making guest lectures, either in person or via video conference. These lectures and demonstrations aim to introduce students to the cutting-edge research happening in various fields, and serve as educational forums that encourage interaction between collegiate students and academia and industry.
Some notable personalities who delivered lectures at recent editions of Shaastra:
Multidisciplinary Events
These events transcend conventional engineering, venturing into all branches of engineering and testing the overall skills of the participants. The staple ones are:
Online Events
Online counterparts of various popular events are conducted at Shaastra. This is to facilitate participation of students across the world unable to make it to the events. The common ones conducted include Online Quiz, Online Puzzle Championship, Online Programming Contest, Online Science Fiction Writing and Online Math Modelling. These generally include problem sets uploaded online and answers have to be sent in by the participants within the stipulated deadline.
Paper Presentation
This event acts as a platform for students to present their experiments and findings in the presence of highly qualified judges. Selected presentations are published in the Shaastra journal, 'Shaastra Proceedings'.
Quizzes
Shaastra prominently features two (or more) popular, technical quizzes every year, drawing large participation from all over the country.
Unwind Events
These are events that are aimed at all general participants.
The daily events offer a compendium of daily quizzes, cross-words and other brain games. Participants are free to pick them up from the central reception.
Workshops
Shaastra includes a large number of workshops conducted on a wide range of topics. They give the participants a working knowledge or experience of various branches of engineering. Workshops in the past have been on Cinematography, Embedded Linux, Tensegrity, Smart Materials, Ornithopter and more.
It has previously been conducted in Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Surat.
Marking two hundred years since Charles Darwin
was born, it aimed to evolve into a festival that is all inclusive, budding engineers, young entrepreneurs, future policy makers and technocrats, and be more relevant to the problems faced by the society. To enable this, a new department Shaastra Evolve was created. The events under this vertical included:
Apart from the traditional events described above, a full-fledged Aerofest was held, as mentioned above, attracting huge audience levels. Also, a managerial event, Super Manager, where participants managed their own fictional IPL team, played consultants, hired team members, maximised assets and minimised tax returns, was held.
The Department Open Houses, with a mission to educate people from outside about what research and studies happen in the departments in IIT Madras, were organized for the first time in the history of Shaastra.
There were many events organized for the first time in this edition, like the Rubik's Cube Workshop, the Design Challenges and others, which saw huge participation and which would become fixtures in the later editions. Thus, this edition marked a jump in the scale of the event
Also, a new event Junkyard Wars turned out to be extremely popular among the participants and went on to become a fixture at Shaastra http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2006100803590200.htm&date=2006/10/08/&prd=th&.
The media reports can be accessed from the external links given below:
for two IIT Madras students. Christened `Xiva', the software developed by Arun Manohar and A V Varun, students of Aerospace Engineering, could detect flex action of bowlers. It was an image-based flex detection system that alerted the umpire when a bowler bent his bowling elbow at an angle greater than 15 degrees or 'chucked'http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2005101311630100.htm&date=2005/10/13/&prd=th&. It was part of Industry Defined Problem [IDP] event http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2005100717250500.htm&date=2005/10/07/&prd=th&.
The media reports can be accessed from the external links given below:
The media report about the same can be accessed here.
Newspaper articles about Shaastra 2002 can be accessed from the external links listed below:
The media report about the edition can be accessed here.
Even though the dice symbolize perfect order they don't have perfect symmetry. The two dots on the rightmost face of the right cube are not a mirror image of the same in the left cube. This is a tribute to Richard Feynman
's statement, "I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about". However hard one may try to remove all uncertainty and induce perfect symmetry perfection is an impossible ideal that eludes humans. The Shaastra website says "the Shaastra logo embodies the essence of what Shaastra strives to achieve - innovation, quality and perfection."
Indian Institute of Technology Madras
The Indian Institute of Technology Madras is an engineering and technology school in Chennai in southern India. It is recognized as an Institute of National Importance by the Government of India...
(IITM), Chennai, India. The Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
word ‘Shaastra’ means science and the festival accordingly consists of various science and technology based competitions, symposia, lectures, video conferences, exhibitions, demonstrations and workshops. The festival is traditionally held over four days and four nights during the last week of September and the first week of October. It has so far seen ten editions, having started in its current avatar in the year 2000. Shaastra attracts participation from all over India, and seeks to provide collegiate students with a platform to showcase their scientific and engineering talents. Shaastra is entirely student managed and holds the distinction of being the first such event in the world to be ISO 9001:2000 certified for implementing a Quality Management System
Quality management system
A quality management system can be expressed as the organizational structure, procedures, processes and resources needed to implement quality management.-Elements of a Quality Management System:# Organizational structure# Responsibilities# Methods...
.
History
In 1996, Prof. R Natarajan took over as Director and instituted several committees to study several ways of improving IIT Madras. One of his committees, the Committee on new mechanisms of Teacher Learning Interactions, was tasked with coming up with ways of inspiring students. This committee, headed by Prof. Ajit Kumar Kolar, came up with a suggestion to create a technology festival in IIT Madras. Also, Prof. U R Rao, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Institute, in 1997, was impressed by the scale and ambition of the newly inaugurated Techfest at Indian Institute of Technology BombayIndian Institute of Technology Bombay
The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay , popularly known as IIT Bombay or IITB, is a public research university located in Powai, Mumbai...
and on his behest, several students came together and staged 'Pragmaa', a technical festival, in 1997, and then in 1999. Despite the inclusion of various technical events including tech quizzes, demonstrations and paper presentations that attempted to get participants interested in applying their technical knowledge, it remained low-key http://iitmbook.pbworks.com/Chapter-4%3A-Activities-on-Campus.
Following the 1999 edition, a group of individuals decided to stage a bigger technical festival that made tech cool and generated interest and enthusiasm among all IITians. This group, propelled by different motivations, took upon the title of 'Core Group' (a practice which continues till today) and engaged themselves in planning and organizing the festival. After deciding on the name Shaastra, and the events - different kinds of quizzes, demonstrations, lectures - and some food and fun, they convinced the rest of the campus that this was worth their time and they should help in the organization. They decided to have it in March, after the excitement of Saarang
Saarang
Saarang is the annual social and cultural festival of IIT Madras. It is a five-day long event held towards the end of January every year and is attended by around 50,000 students. Called Mardi Gras when it was started more than thirty years ago, the fest has gone on to become an integral part of...
had died down, but before people started getting nervous about the end-semester exams http://www.shaastra.org/smriti/memoir.
Students applied for and took on the role of Coordinators for various events. A set of colleges around the country was targeted and the amount required to run the event was raised through sponsorships. The first edition was thus planned and took place starting March 9, 2000 http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/2000/02/23/stories/09230461.htm.
Events: An Overview
A large number of events aimed to cater the needs of all the participants are organized during the four days the festival is held. The events can be broadly listed under several categories:Aerofest
A relatively new mini festival at Shaastra that has been introduced to celebrate the achievements of the students who have dedicated their time for designing and developing innovations in flying.
- Air Show
- It is a professionally choreographed show, wherein RC aircraft will be made to perform various aerial stunts. A few of the common exhibits include helicopter aerobatics, formation flying, 3D flying and music synchronized flying.
- Aerobotics
- This event tests participants' aeromodelling and robotics skills. The AeroClub of IIT Madras will provide the participants with limited technical support. They are expected to build an autonomous vehicle using a few principles borrowed from Robotics.
- The Wright Design
- This is a design, build and fly event. A problem statement is set every year and participants have to cater to the given challenge.
Coding
A number of events based on coding feature prominently in Shaastra. The common ones include:
- HackFest
- The event comprises participants getting to know the fundamentals about FOSS from students who have been contributing to Open Source projects. Dedicated hack-nights are conducted to help the participants apply the gained knowledge by hacking a variety of Open Source Software.
- Polyglot
- The event expects the participants to write polyglots, computer programs or scripts written in a valid form for multiple programming languages, to solve simple problem statements.
Design
This group of events involves engineering tasks that require innovative yet viable solutions. Some of the common ones are:
- Blueprint
- It is the open hardware and software design contest at Shaastra. The event does not have a problem statement, so participants are free to come up with anything as long as it is original.
- Industry Defined Problems [IDPs]
- It is one of the most prestigious events at Shaastra, consisting of problem statements drawn up from varied engineering disciplines by major technology firms.
Design and Build
These events test the practical skill and workmanship of the participants in addition to their theoretical knowledge and designing abilities. The common ones include:
- Contraptions
- The event, as the name suggests, requires complicated contraptions (essentially Rube Goldberg machineRube Goldberg machineA Rube Goldberg machine, contraption, device, or apparatus is a deliberately over-engineered or overdone machine that performs a very simple task in a very complex fashion, usually including a chain reaction...
s) to be built to perform apparently simple tasks under given set of constraints.- Fire N Ice
- This event focuses on the application of the principles of motors, IC engines in particular, in various given problem statements.
- Junkyard Wars
- The event tests the ability of teams to churn out great designs from heaps of scrap.
- Project X
- The event requires simple engineering products to be built using common everyday objects.
- Robotics
- A staple at Shaastra, it provides participants a platform to showcase their talent at robotics. Events in the past include Operation Delta, Gold Rush, Behind the Enemy Lines and more.These frequently involve real-time image processing and Automated Robotics with the use of sensors.
This is also claimed to be the biggest event of Shaastra
- Shaastra Circuit Design Challenge
- This event requires participants to come up with elegant yet meaningful circuit designs according to the problem statement.
Lectures and Video Conferences
Shaastra draws various distinguished people in various technical fields from all over the world for making guest lectures, either in person or via video conference. These lectures and demonstrations aim to introduce students to the cutting-edge research happening in various fields, and serve as educational forums that encourage interaction between collegiate students and academia and industry.
Some notable personalities who delivered lectures at recent editions of Shaastra:
- Martin Perl, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, 1995
- Harold KrotoHarold KrotoSir Harold Walter Kroto, FRS , born Harold Walter Krotoschiner, is a British chemist and one of the three recipients to share the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley....
, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1996 - John MatherJohn C. MatherJohn Cromwell Mather is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his work on the Cosmic Background Explorer Satellite with George Smoot. COBE was the first experiment to measure ".....
, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, 2006 - George Andrew OlahGeorge Andrew OlahGeorge Andrew Olah is an American chemist. His research involves the generation and reactivity of carbocations via superacids. For this research, Olah was awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1994...
, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1994 - Arno Allan PenziasArno Allan PenziasArno Allan Penzias is an American physicist and Nobel laureate in physics.-Early life and education:Penzias was born in Munich, Germany. At age six he was among the Jewish children evacuated to Britain as part of the Kindertransport rescue operation...
, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, 1978 - Shrikumar Suryanarayan, President, R&D, Biocon
- Roddam NarasimhaRoddam narasimhaRoddam Narasimha is an Indian aerospace scientist and fluid dynamicist. He was the chairman of the Engineering Mechanics Unit at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research JNCASR, India...
, former Director, National Aerospace Laboratories. - Rajagopala ChidambaramRajagopala ChidambaramRajagopala Chidambaram is an Indian nuclear scientist and metallurgist. He is the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India and former Director of India's primary nuclear research facility, BARC. Dr...
, Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Atomic Energy. - Simon SinghSimon SinghSimon Lehna Singh, MBE is a British author who has specialised in writing about mathematical and scientific topics in an accessible manner....
, popular science author. - Stephen WolframStephen WolframStephen Wolfram is a British scientist and the chief designer of the Mathematica software application and the Wolfram Alpha computational knowledge engine.- Biography :...
, creator of Mathematica. - Kevin WarwickKevin WarwickKevin Warwick is a British scientist and professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom...
, the human cyborg. - Dilip ChhabriaDilip ChhabriaDilip Chhabria is an Indian automobile designer. He is the founder of DC Design.-Biography:He is qualified in Transportation Design from the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California, U.S. and worked with General Motors USA in their Design Centre...
, automobile designer. - Gururaj Deshpande, CEO, Sycamore Networks.
- Gene Frantz, principal Fellow, Texas Instruments.
- Krishna Bharat, principal scientist, Google Inc.
- Bob PeaseBob PeaseRobert Allen Pease was an analog integrated circuit design expert and technical author. He designed several very successful "best-seller" integrated circuits, many of them in continuous production for multiple decades...
, analog integrated circuit design expert and technical author. - Hal AbelsonHal AbelsonHarold Abelson is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, a fellow of the IEEE, and is a founding director of both Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation....
, founding director of FSF, Creative Commons and Public Knowledge. - Dr. Arne Christer FuglesangChrister FuglesangDr. Arne Christer Fuglesang is a Swedish physicist and an ESA astronaut. He was first launched aboard the STS-116 Space Shuttle mission on December 10, 2006, at 01:47 GMT, making him the first Swedish citizen in space....
, ESA astronaut. - Dr. Thamban Meloth, Head, Ice Core Laboratory, National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research.
- Dr. Narendra Krishna KarmarkarNarendra KarmarkarNarendra K. Karmarkar is an Indian mathematician, renowned for developing Karmarkar's algorithm. He is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher.- Biography :...
, mathematician, known for his Karmarkar algorithm in linear programming. - Ramanathan V. GuhaRamanathan V. GuhaRamanathan V. Guha is an Indian computer scientist. He graduated with B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology Madras, MS from University of California Berkeley and...
, computer scientist, Google. - Prof. V BalakrishnanV. Balakrishnan (physicist)V. Balakrishnan is an Indian theoretical physicist who has worked in a number of areas, namely theoretical particle physics, many-body theory, dynamical systems, stochastic processes, quantum dynamics, and the mechanical behavior of solids. Dr. Balakrishnan received his PhD from Brandeis University...
, Professor, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras. - Dr. Apoorva D Patel, Professor, CHEPSE, IISc Bangalore.
- Prof. Raghavendra GadagkarRaghavendra GadagkarRaghavendra Gadagkar is a professor at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, who studies evolution using eusocial insects Ropalidia marginata....
, Professor, Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc Bangalore. - Tyler CowenTyler CowenTyler Cowen is an American economist, academic, and writer. He occupies the Holbert C. Harris Chair of economics as a professor at George Mason University and is co-author, with Alex Tabarrok, of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution...
, economist and writer. - Chris AdamiChris AdamiChristoph Carl Herbert Adami is a professor at Michigan State University. He is best known for his work on Avida, an artificial life simulator used to study evolutionary biology. He received the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal while serving at JPL...
, evolutionary theorist. - Vinod KhoslaVinod KhoslaVinod Khosla is an Indian-born American venture capitalist and an influential personality in Silicon Valley....
, co-founder, Sun Microsystems. - Atul ChitnisAtul ChitnisAtul Chitnis is an Indian consulting technologist. He is also the founder of FOSS.IN , one of Asia's largest FOSS conferences.-Biography:...
, founder, FOSS.IN
Multidisciplinary Events
These events transcend conventional engineering, venturing into all branches of engineering and testing the overall skills of the participants. The staple ones are:
- Math Modelling
- The event poses complex but interesting physical phenomena which are to be modelled mathematically.
- Pentathlon
- A team based competition involving a series of five challenges which tests the team members' skill in application of engineering knowledge, simple mathematics and a lot of common sense.
- The Ultimate Engineer
- This event tests participants individually in theoretical and practical aspects of multiple branches of engineering.
- Simulation Championship
- The event is designed to test participants on their ability to simulate real world phenomena while optimizing the usage of computing resources.
Online Events
Online counterparts of various popular events are conducted at Shaastra. This is to facilitate participation of students across the world unable to make it to the events. The common ones conducted include Online Quiz, Online Puzzle Championship, Online Programming Contest, Online Science Fiction Writing and Online Math Modelling. These generally include problem sets uploaded online and answers have to be sent in by the participants within the stipulated deadline.
Paper Presentation
This event acts as a platform for students to present their experiments and findings in the presence of highly qualified judges. Selected presentations are published in the Shaastra journal, 'Shaastra Proceedings'.
Quizzes
Shaastra prominently features two (or more) popular, technical quizzes every year, drawing large participation from all over the country.
- Shaastra Main Quiz [SMQ]
- A quiz dealing with technology and science related trivia.
- How Things Work [HTW]
- The event aims to test the participants' level of understanding of the practical world.
Unwind Events
These are events that are aimed at all general participants.
- Chemical X
- This event tests the participants' knowledge of chemistry and tests them in hands-on rounds too.
- Cube Open
- Shaastra Cube Open is one of the cubing competitions in India to be recognized by the WCA (World Cube Association)World Cube AssociationThe World Cube Association is an organization that regulates and holds Rubik's Cube competitions. It was founded by Ron van Bruchem of the Netherlands and Tyson Mao of the United States...
. It usually gathers a sizable audience.- Daily Events
The daily events offer a compendium of daily quizzes, cross-words and other brain games. Participants are free to pick them up from the central reception.
- IgNobel
- Based on the famous IgNobel PrizeIg Nobel PrizeThe Ig Nobel Prizes are an American parody of the Nobel Prizes and are given each year in early October for ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. The stated aim of the prizes is to "first make people laugh, and then make them think"...
, participants' creativity and lateral thinking are brought to the fore.- Puzzle Championship
- Participants are required to solve a number of puzzle sets over the span of the event.
- Science Fiction Writing
- Traditional science fiction writing in two flavors.
- Warp Zone
- It is the fun centre of Shaastra where participants head to, to relax amidst the more competitive events.
Workshops
Shaastra includes a large number of workshops conducted on a wide range of topics. They give the participants a working knowledge or experience of various branches of engineering. Workshops in the past have been on Cinematography, Embedded Linux, Tensegrity, Smart Materials, Ornithopter and more.
Shaastra Sampark
Going by the name Sparsh erstwhile, Sampark is a 'mini Shaastra' that is used to publicize the fest in places where it is relatively less popular. It comprises a lot lesser events, mostly only robotics, puzzle championship, junkyard wars, and some more.It has previously been conducted in Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Surat.
Previous Editions
Specific additions to the general set of events mentioned above and certain memorable achievements of the previous editions are listed below:Shaastra 2009
With the theme "Rediscover Engineering", the Shaastra 2009 was held from 30th September to 4th October. The motto was to "Adapt, Evolve, Enjoy!" and various events were planned in the same spirit.Marking two hundred years since Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
was born, it aimed to evolve into a festival that is all inclusive, budding engineers, young entrepreneurs, future policy makers and technocrats, and be more relevant to the problems faced by the society. To enable this, a new department Shaastra Evolve was created. The events under this vertical included:
- * The IIT Madras Symposium http://symposium.shaastra.org
-
- The 2009 IIT Madras Symposium saw partnerships with organizations like the World Bank Urban Strategy and TERI to create a platform for students to meet like-minded individuals and engage in a dialogue with academia and industry on the themes. The participants were presented with contemporary policy challenges and asked to work on policy recommendations. The focus-areas of the inaugural symposium were energy, urbanisation and finance, and the sessions were covered by live media.
- * Start-up Showcase
- This event aimed to promote innovation and entrepreneurship among students by providing them with an opportunity to seek mentorship, meet possible investors and to network. The Showcase aspired to support those with creative and practical business plans, to facilitate fresh thinking and encourage risk taking.
- * DREAM [Disseminating Real Engineering And Minds]
- This event desired to stage exciting innovations, bringing technology to the masses enabling them to encounter and experience the latest advances in varied fields of science.
- * Shaastra Vishesh
- Vishesh is the Shaastra closing ceremony and was envisaged as a platform for all Shaastra Event Winners to showcase their technical innovations and designs to the Industry and the Media.
Apart from the traditional events described above, a full-fledged Aerofest was held, as mentioned above, attracting huge audience levels. Also, a managerial event, Super Manager, where participants managed their own fictional IPL team, played consultants, hired team members, maximised assets and minimised tax returns, was held.
Shaastra 2008
Commemorating the 50th year of the establishment of IIT Madras, the edition was labelled Golden Jubilee Shaastra 2008 and witnessed many new initiatives. With the theme "Simplify Perfection", it was held from 1st October to 5th October, on an unprecedented scale. Apart from the traditional events, the highlights included:- * Shaastra Conclave
- This was a gala Golden Jubilee initiative intended to be a forum for the best brains from diverse fields to congregate at Shaastra and express their opinions on technology and the contribution of the IITs to India and this world. Corporates, academicians and politicians were invited to debate comprehensively on the occasion. It was held in conjunction with the inauguration ceremony and was followed by a formal banquet.
- * Shaastra Nights
- Being hosted for the first time in the history of IIT Madras, it exposed students to the entertaining technology demonstrations like a laser show and a robotic show.
- * F1 car at Shaastra
- ING GroupING GroupThe ING Group is a global financial institution offering retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, asset management, and insurance services. ING is the Dutch member of the Inter-Alpha Group of Banks, a cooperative consortium of 11 prominent European banks...
was one of the key sponsors for Shaastra 2008. As one of the major highlights of the fest, the RenaultRenaultRenault S.A. is a French automaker producing cars, vans, and in the past, autorail vehicles, trucks, tractors, vans and also buses/coaches. Its alliance with Nissan makes it the world's third largest automaker...
R28 F1 car was brought to the IIT campus and put on display for all the visitors to see.
- ING Group
- * Golden Design Challenges
- These were envisaged to be a set of challenging socially relevant engineering problems with far-reaching implications.
- * Spirit of Engineering projects
- More than ten ambitious student-driven projects that aimed to push the limits of engineering were undertaken. Some of them were tried for the first time in India. Many of them were successfully completed and exhibited.
- * DRDO Exhibition
- Several indigenously developed state-of-the-art weaponry and defence equipment were displayed in the “Shaastra - The Defence Exhibition”. 13 DRDO labs came together to showcase their technology including the battle field surveillance radar, models of AgniAgni missile systemThe Agni missile is a family of Medium to Intercontinental range ballistic missiles developed by India under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program...
, PrithviPrithvi missilePrithvi is a tactical surface-to-surface short-range ballistic missile developed by DRDO of India under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program.- Development and History :...
, BrahmosBrahMosBrahMos is a stealth supersonic cruise missile that can be launched from submarines, ships, aircraft or land. It is a joint venture between Republic of India's Defence Research and Development Organisation and Russian Federation's NPO Mashinostroeyenia who have together formed BrahMos Aerospace...
missiles, NishantDRDO Nishant-Launch & recovery:* Launch: Mobile hydropneumatic launcher system* Recovery: Parachute + landing bags- See also :...
(unmanned air vehicle), Lakshya (pilotless target aircraft) and missile subsystems.
- Several indigenously developed state-of-the-art weaponry and defence equipment were displayed in the “Shaastra - The Defence Exhibition”. 13 DRDO labs came together to showcase their technology including the battle field surveillance radar, models of Agni
- * Industrial Open House
- This was a novel initiative to strengthen the industry-student interaction by providing leading companies exhibition space on-campus during Shaastra to showcase their cutting-edge technology and innovative products.
Shaastra 2007
It attracted a lot more participation than the previous editions and claimed to be 'bigger and better'. This was the first Shaastra to have a theme, as suggested by Prof. Ashwin Mahalingam, and was based on global warming and energy.The Department Open Houses, with a mission to educate people from outside about what research and studies happen in the departments in IIT Madras, were organized for the first time in the history of Shaastra.
There were many events organized for the first time in this edition, like the Rubik's Cube Workshop, the Design Challenges and others, which saw huge participation and which would become fixtures in the later editions. Thus, this edition marked a jump in the scale of the event
Shaastra 2006
The highlights included a robot demonstrated by the team from the National University of Singapore (NUS) at the finals of the robotics championships held as part of Shaastra 2006 http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2006100903140500.htm&date=2006/10/09/&prd=th&. Standing 50cm tall and weighing 2.5kg, MANUS 1 human was a biped (robot) prototype developed for the study of human gait, motion and sensing. MANUS 1 had previously won several awards including the FIRA Robot World Cup at Germany 2006, the same event in Singapore in 2005, FIRA Robot World Cup Australia 2003 and the Singapore Robotics Games 2004.Also, a new event Junkyard Wars turned out to be extremely popular among the participants and went on to become a fixture at Shaastra http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2006100803590200.htm&date=2006/10/08/&prd=th&.
The media reports can be accessed from the external links given below:
- Gear up for Shaastra 2006
- Shaastra to be held from Oct. 4
- Shaastra 2006 celebrates the spirit of engineering
- Waiting for Shaastra'06, the ultimate test for students
- Shaastra looking for young entrepreneurs
- 30,000 expected at 'Shaastra 2006
- Unmanned aerial vehicle
- Getting innovations on track at Shaastra 2006
Shaastra 2005
The highlights included a solution to the chucking problem in cricket that won acclaim from the International Cricket CouncilInternational Cricket Council
The International Cricket Council is the international governing body of cricket. It was founded as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 by representatives from England, Australia and South Africa, renamed the International Cricket Conference in 1965, and took up its current name in 1989.The...
for two IIT Madras students. Christened `Xiva', the software developed by Arun Manohar and A V Varun, students of Aerospace Engineering, could detect flex action of bowlers. It was an image-based flex detection system that alerted the umpire when a bowler bent his bowling elbow at an angle greater than 15 degrees or 'chucked'http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2005101311630100.htm&date=2005/10/13/&prd=th&. It was part of Industry Defined Problem [IDP] event http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2005100717250500.htm&date=2005/10/07/&prd=th&.
The media reports can be accessed from the external links given below:
- Time for Shaastra
- The 'Shaastra' of technological excellence
- The little things at Shaastra
- A technical fete for the techies
- Synergizing theory and practice
- Innovation at its best at IIT festival
- Robots slug it out at IIT
- A robotic grand prix
- Robotics sessions a big hit at Shaastra
Shaastra 2004
This edition was held from 7th October to 10th October and got extensive media coverage for its various endeavours in robotics and Spirit of Engineering projects. The media reports can be accessed from the external links given below:- Engineer's Paradise
- Engineering a tech fest
- Showcasing technological innovation
- Displaying their engineering skills
- They create good robots
- Poochi' apart, little future in robots
Shaastra 2003
This edition marked a milestone in the history of Shaastra when the fest was ISO 9001:2000 certified, the only student managed festival in the world to achieve the feat.The media report about the same can be accessed here.
Shaastra 2002
The highlights of the edition was world's longest paper footbridge being constructed by the students of IIT Madras, as a part of the Spirit Of Engineering projects. The bridge with a total length of 11m and a height of 5m was made entirely out of 1800 newspapers and 250m of manila rope. The strength of the bridge was proved beyond doubt when more than 10 people with an average weight of 65kg walked over the bridge successfully.http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2002122600070200.htm&date=2002/12/26/&prd=seta&Newspaper articles about Shaastra 2002 can be accessed from the external links listed below:
Shaastra 2001
The second edition of Shaastra was held from 21st February to 25th February, 2001.The media report about the edition can be accessed here.
Shaastra 2000
This was the first edition of Shaastra and the fest was held starting 9th March. It claimed to be a festival for the engineering and management students, a "sumptuous spread of Innovation, Competition, Live Demonstrations, Online Events and other such food for thought". The media report about the same can be accessed here: Getting ready for Shaastra!.The Shaastra Logo
The logo of the 2009 edition of Shaastra is a pair of dice having two dots on all its faces. This is a tribute to Albert Einstein's historic statement, "God does not play dice with the universe", which immortalized the concept of determinism. The logo is used by the organizers to signify that they leave nothing to chance. The dice will show the same number whichever way it is rolled.Even though the dice symbolize perfect order they don't have perfect symmetry. The two dots on the rightmost face of the right cube are not a mirror image of the same in the left cube. This is a tribute to Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman
Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics...
's statement, "I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about". However hard one may try to remove all uncertainty and induce perfect symmetry perfection is an impossible ideal that eludes humans. The Shaastra website says "the Shaastra logo embodies the essence of what Shaastra strives to achieve - innovation, quality and perfection."