A New Spark

After a successful edition of the festival last year,themed on the evolution of robotics,COEP has a number of new events lined up for this year. The seventh edition of the festival also features “Metropolice”,an event for non-engineers. The event is for architecture students where they will be given an actual plot of land in or around Pune and asked to come up with a plan for building a township project. “The event will give students a hands-on experience on planning. They will have to take the

geographical features and location,among others,into consideration when they are working on it,just like they are making a real project,” says Rohan Danait,MindSpark’s Events Head.

Other new events added to their list include “Code Swap” and “Virtual Robotics”. In “Code Swap”,teams with two students will be given a programme to code on different computers and after a certain time,they will swap their systems and debug each others’ programmes as fast as possible. On the other hand,in “Virtual Robotics”,teams from different colleges have to build an actual robot and stimulate it with a virtual software.

While the technical section of the festival includes events such as “Micro Apps”,“Circuit Fixer” and “Encrypto”,the robotics section features events such as “Robowars”,“Dogfight Bot Wrestling” and “Search and Destroy”. A new module called “Mimosa” has been introduced in the festival,encouraging biology students to apply their knowledge to the field of engineering. A range of non-technical events are also lined up,including Amazing Race,Flash and Sudoku.

“As a tradition,every year,we try and include new events or add interesting twists to our signature events. This year,we have consciously made an attempt to introduce a variety of events which not only focus on engineering but also on other areas of technology that is helpful to the larger population,” says Danait.

Along with a number of competitive events,the festival will also organise a range of workshops for the participating students such as “Stareway to Heaven”,“CNC Lathe”,“TUX”,“HAM”,and “Virtual Lab”. Guest lectures by eminent speakers will be organised for the students.

“This is the first time that we have tied up with two NGOs — Akanksha Foundation and Swaroopwardhinee. We have invited students from classes 8-10 from these NGOs to come and attend the lectures,” says Kulkarni. The festival will also feature a street play titled Atta Bas,by the Janeev club of COEP. The play will highlight the crimes against women and how it is up to the youth of the country to bring an end to it.