Magnum Opus '08: September 2008

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

JUNKYARD WARS-PROBLEM STATEMENT

“Design a boat having weight carrying capacity”

Design Specifications:

1) The dimensions of the boat should not exceed 45cm × 30 cm.

2) Pay load will be of the order of x*102 gm(x>0.5).

3) There is no upper limit for pay load.

Junk Available:

S.No	Item	Specification	Quantity
1	Motor	3V	At Max 2
2	Batteries	1.5V	At Max 4
3	Coke Bottle	2 litre,0.5litre	At Max 3

Miscellaneous: Ice-cream Scoop, Tin, Pen Refill, Fevicol, M-Seal, Nails, Safety Pins, Thermocols, Grease, Wire, Straw

* It is not necessary to use all the junk provided

Rules and Regulations

Each team can have a maximum of 4 members.

Each team’s ideas have to be original.

All the team members must be present during the finals.

In case of any discrepancy the decision of the judges will be final.

‘Junkyard Wars’ organizing team reserves the right to eliminate the participants in case of any misconduct.

Judging Criteria:

For prelims: Design of the boat and its feasibility.

For finals: Load carrying capacity and time taken to transport it.

Submission Format:

Design mentioning complete specification details like materials used, dimensions, etc must be submitted latest by Thursday, 18th September 2008 to any one of the following:

Neeraj Patel
Room No 208, H-4

Prateek Goel
Room No 224, H-4

You should also mention along with your design the fabrication process of your designed boat and the working of critical parts like propeller, etc

For any queries, contact Prateek Goel 09896175349

magnumopus.nitk@gmail.com

MECH VIBES & INTERFACE

The strategy is to showcase recent headways and the issues that make news. It’s a critical insight into the ventures going around and analysis of certain socio-technical bustles.

Basic Rules and Suggestions:

• A paper in any of the above two categories can be authored by at most two students.

• The abstracts for the paper and queries etc. must be mailed at magnumopus.nitk@gmail.com

• The Subject of the mail must contain the category i.e. Interface or Mechvibes as applicable.

• The entries may or may not be from among the suggested topics.

• Word limit for abstracts: 300 words

• Abstracts must be in a paragraph format.

• The abstracts must necessarily sum up the essence of the final paper, including the thought process and the key ideas. Unnecessary usage of flowery language should be avoided.

• Abstracts must be submitted latest by Saturday, 13th September, 2008

• The results of the elimination round will be announced by Monday, 15th September, 2008.

Suggested Topics

Interface:

1. NSG Waiver: End of Nuclear Apartheid or just a hogwash?

2. Gay Pride Parades: Has India come of age?

3. Kashmir Issue: Is secession the only solution?

4. Seven new IITs: A compromise on quality?

5. Mayawati as PM: A symbol of Dalit pride or height of petty politics?

6. Kosi flood fury: How efficient is India’s disaster management system?

Mech-Vibes:

1. Quasi Turbine Engines

2. Supply Chain Management 2.0

3. Reverse Engineering

4. Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT)

5. Amphibious Vehicles

6. Magnetorheological Fluids

Event Coordinators:

Interface : Manik Raina 09896212364

Anup Kumar 09896959680

Mech-Vibes : Vidhan Biyani 09896460405

Prateek Goel 09896175349

A leading media group has decided to undertake a nation-building initiative to bring together children in need of education and people who can contribute a little time towards teaching them. It is based on one simple principle: If you have the desire to teach, they will put you in touch with underprivileged children who are willing to learn. With over sixty of India’s committed NGOs, corporates, schools and social organizations already supporting the cause, the media group now looks for selfless individuals to come forward and help change the future of a child forever, by giving just a few hours a week to the initiative.

The initiative aims to help under-educated children through a variety of programmes, including basic education, support classes and even storytelling. These are all very easy-to-teach programmes in which simple topics have to be taught to children mostly at primary school level. The type of programme a volunteer is assigned to, will be decided after assessment by the NGO, keeping your location and time preference in mind.

You work as a marketing executive for the media group and as a part of publicizing the initiative and spreading the word, you are entrusted with the job of devising a marketing strategy and thereby design an all-India media campaign for the same. The initiative will be launched initially in the four metro cities and intends to cover entire India in a year’s time.

TASKS:-

A) Design the ‘Marketing Strategy’ for the above problem, targeting the required potential people and highlighting the approach to be followed, by the media group.

B) As part of the media campaign, you are supposed to design the following:-

1. Give an appropriate Name and Tagline to the campaign. Also design a Logo for the same.

2. Design a Poster of dimensions 22”x 18” comprising the essential details.

3. Design a full page Newspaper Advertisement of dimensions 14”x 22” consisting of the required particulars.

4. Make a 45sec-long Radio Jingle.

5. Also make a TV Commercial for the same, of maximum 90 seconds’ duration.

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PROBLEM STATEMENT 2:

A group of eminent businessmen, engineers, civil service officers and social activists, have launched a new political party with an aim to build up a new India free from terrorism, discrimination, reservation, corruption, crime, delay in justice and government inefficiency. The Party believes in unleashing the power of private enterprise of the people of India. It intends to make India a powerful and prosperous nation and thus help it regain its rightful place as the preceptor of the world. It wishes to bring in a new ray of vision and hope in the present depressing political scenario where political parties are shamelessly engaged in vote bank politics at the cost of national interest. The straightforwardness of the Party has been liked and appreciated by a number of educated people.

The Party wishes to bring together all well-meaning & concerned people in this initiative and gather support for the same, thereby making India really an ‘Incredible India’.

As a member of the party, you have been entrusted with the responsibility of carrying the message to the local masses and encourage volunteers to join the party. You are supposed to devise a promotional strategy and design an all-India media campaign for the same. Your strategy should focus on roping in as many committed and educated individuals as possible, to work for the party.

TASKS:-

A) Design the ‘Marketing Strategy’ for the above problem, targeting the required potential people and highlighting the approach to be followed, by the Political Party.

B) As part of the all-India media campaign, you are supposed to design the following:-

1. Give an appropriate Name and Tagline to the campaign. Also design a Logo for the same.

2. Design a Poster of dimensions 22”x 18” comprising the essential details.

3. Design a full page Newspaper Advertisement of dimensions 14”x 22” consisting of the required particulars.

4. Make a 45sec-long Radio Jingle.

5. Also make a TV Commercial for the same, of maximum 90 seconds’ duration.

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RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR APPRENTICE:-

The teams will be assessed on the basis of their daily performances in the following two weeks and the presentation in the finals.

The performance during the two weeks’ time carries 30% weightage and the presentation, the remaining 70%.

On the basis of the ‘Appraisal Report’, two teams will be fired, one on Friday 12th Sept, and the other on Tuesday, 16th.

Mentors for the event have the prerogative to award ‘Gratuity Points’ to a team for their impressive performances.

Conversely, in case of disobedience or violation of any of the rules, mentors are entitled to impose a ‘Penalty’ in form of negative points.

Plagiarism of any sort will not be tolerated and may result in disqualification of the team.

The onus of keeping the mentors informed about the team’s progress lies with the team itself. Teams should assure that the latest developments in their campaign are communicated well in time to the mentors.

In case of conflict, the decision of the judges and mentors will be final.

MENTORS:

Manik Raina - 9896212364

Aman Vig - 9896848258

Paresh Dhokad - 9896544714

APPRENTICE-FINALISTS & THEIR TEAMS

Following is the list of the final teams with their members, shortlisted for the final round of the APPRENTICE to be held on 2o^thSept, ‘o8.

A-TEAM

1. Adhip Mohapatra

2. Mehul Patel

3. Puneet Kumar

4. Rahul R.

5. Abhijit Gupta

SATORI SEEKERS

1. Arpit Rushia

2. Pranav Patel

3. Ashish Jha

4. Chandra Shekhar

5. Anirudh Kaul

PANGEA

1. P. Satyam

2. Abhishek Joshi

3. G. Phani Bhushan

4. Sudip Pal

5. Pradeep Bhatt

MIS3

1. Monika

2. Ishita Sharma

3. Sumana Khound

4. Supriya Mattoo

5. Sneha Das

ELIXIR

1. Anurag Dhingra

2. Ashish Maheshwari

3. Hunar Gandhi

4. Saamir Gupta

5. Animesh Pandey

INFERNAL MAJESTY

1. Apurva Nandan

2. Nitin Menon

3. V. Srinivas Raghavan

4. Gaurav Singh

5. Suyog Gholap

THE MASTERS

1. Mukund Kumar Thakur

2. Jitaditya Dey

3. Balasubramanyam M. N.

4. Praveen Khangta

5. Vipul Singh

FREAKIN’ FRESHERS

1. Ashish Gupta

2. Sahil Sharma

3. Mohit Dhingra

4. Bhavjot Singh

5. Saksham Varma

Thursday, September 4, 2008

APPRENTICE SOLUTIONS

We were overwhelmed by the response shown towards today's elims for "THE APPRENTICE". We had, in total, close to 200 entries for all three sections. We hope that this spirit of participation will be seen for all the other events in MAGNUM OPUS '08.

The names of the short listed people will be posted shortly.

Below are the solutions for the different sections.

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APTITUDE SECTION

1. There were 2 doors. one lead to heaven and other to hell there were two doorkeepers one outside each door. one told lie and other spoke truth. what will be one question that can be asked to both of them so that one comes to know that which door leads to heaven?

Soln: “What will the other gatekeeper say when asked,”which is the door to heaven”?

Then go thru the door which he hasn’t said.

2. Matthew leaves home in the morning to go to school. At the moment he leaves the house he looks at the clock in the mirror. The clock has no number indication and for this reason the boy makes a mistake in interpreting the time (mirror-image). Just assuming the clock must be out of order, Matthew cycles to school, where he arrives after twenty minutes. At that moment the clock at school shows a time that is two and a half hours later than the time that Matthew saw on the clock at home.

At what time did he reach school?

Soln: 7:25 A.m…(mind it,the time was something in the morning .Although other answers may be right but only the above mentioned satisfies this condition

3. Persons X, Y, Z and Q live in red, green, yellow or blue coloured houses placed in a sequence on a street. Z lives in the yellow house. The green house is adjacent to the blue house. X does not live adjacent to Z. The yellow house is in between the green and the red house. The color of the house X lives in is??

blue

4. Five people with names P, M, U, T and X live separately in any of the following; in a palace, a hut, a fort, a house or a hotel. Each one likes two different colors from among the following: blue, black, red yellow and green. U likes red and blue. T likes black. The person living in palace does not like black or blue. P likes blue and red. M likes yellow. X lives in a hotel. Where does M live???

Palace

5. Move 3 matches to make 4 equilateral triangles, no overlapping

Soln.

The fourth equilateral triangle lies in between the 3 triangles

6. Add 5 matches to these 6 matches and make 9

NINE..11 line segments are used to make this

NUMBERS AND INITIALS

Example: 9 P. in S.S. : 9 Planets in Solar System

7) 12 number of S. of the Z. - 12 numbers of signs of zodiac

8) 32 D.F. at which W.F. - 32 degree Fahrenheit at which water freezes

9) 90 D. in a R.A. - 90 degree in a right angle

10) 64 S. on a C.B. - 64 squares on a chess board

11) A S. in T.S.9 - A STITCH IN TIME SAVES 9

12) 12 N. on a C. - 12 numbers on a clock

ANAGRAMS

For example: There’s God! Super being - President George Bush

13) Eleven Plus Two - Twelve Plus One

14) Bad Credit - Debit Card

15) A Year to shut down - Year two thousand (Y2K bug,remember!!!)

16) Built to stay free - Statue of liberty

17) I get bored man - Board Meeting

AND NOW SOME MORE….

18) I Typical Mindnesses - Sense and Simplicity(Phillips)

19) A Prerecorded Even Film High : High Performance Delivered ( Accenture)

In each of these puzzles (20 to 23), a proverb is written with exactly one letter of each word replaced with another. Can you figure out what the original proverb is?

Example: Wetter mate that fever: Better late than never

20) Ill word end so plan takes pack I pull toy - All work and no play makes jack a dull boy

21) Won't budge I took my ids covet. - Don’t judge a book by its cover

22) Calf I load if wetter that so break - Half a loaf is better than no bread

23) Dyad hen dell to taxes. - Dead man tell no tales

Figure out the idiom/ phrase/meaningful sentence from the following

Example:

Ans. Wake Up

25) what goes up must come down 26)once(1’s) upon a time

27) Your time is up 28)Travel overseas (c’s)

29)summary 30)H2O …water

AND SOME MORE….

31) Joint venture

32)reverse integration

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TECHNICAL SECTION

1) You are given an incomplete picture of a lacy tablecloth and you are asked to duplicate the pattern of the lace on the remaining portion of the tablecloth. To this, you can use:

Soln:- Clone Stamp Tool and Pattern Stamp Tool

2) You have an image of a bunch of colourful flowers and you wish to select only the red roses. The best tool to select them would be:

Soln:- Magic Wand Tool

3) This tool creates smooth transition between two or more colours where one colour blends into another colour. It has several options such as Linear, Radial, Angular, Mirrored and Diamond. Name the tool.

Soln:- Gradient Tool

4) You have a picture of Statue of Liberty taken in the morning. The shadow cast by the statue is small. You want to align the shadow and make it longer so that the picture appears to have been taken in the evening. For this, you will use:

Soln:- Skew Tool

5)To select the leaf in the below image to get the image alongside, you can use:

Soln:- Magnetic Lasso tool

6) Designing a similar layout everyday for your content can be very tiring and time consuming. For example, certain objects such as headers, footers and logos usually hold a standard place. Instead of repeatedly designing the layout again, Adobe Indesign / Corel Draw provides you the option of:

Soln:- Master Pages

SUBJECTIVE QUESTIONS

Answer the following in two to three lines:

We mention the keywords we were looking for in your answer….

1. An accused in a murder case is on the run. The police are looking for him. The accused has been using disguises and making get-away just when the police think they got him. The police have a rather outdated photograph of his. You work as an artist in the police department. You are asked to recreate the person photographically and also predict how would he look like if he disguises himself.(Mention the tools to be used and their purpose)

Soln:- Clone Stamp Tool & Healing Brush Tool for repairing Photo

For disguises, use Layers & Transparency with the aid of other tools

2. Differentiate between Rasterized (Pixelated) Images and Vector Images. Discuss their respective applications.

Soln:- Rasterized Images, since made of pixels, get a bit distorted with increase in scaling.

Photoshop/Paint works with Rasterized Images.

Vector Images are made of curves and lines. They don’t get distorted no matter how

much are they magnified. Corel Draw and Adobe Illustrator works with vector images.

3. Your client needs a set of posters urgently to advertise for interesting places in India like Leh, Goa, Bodhgaya, Delhi and Belur. You need to work with a set of given photographs to create a poster with a picture of the place with its name on it. How do you plan to accomplish the task?

Soln:- You were to use the various tools and options available in your own creative way.

Scaling, distortion, skewing, transparency, gradient, filters could be some of them to

name a few.

4. What do you understand by RGB and CMYK modes of colour? Which mode is preferred for printing purposes?

Soln:- RGB- Red,Green & Blue

CMYK- Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black

CMYK is preferred for printing purposes

5. A path is made of one or more straight or curved segments. The beginning and end of each segment is defined by anchor points. You can change the direction and shape of a segment by editing its anchor points. What are the different five options / tools available for editing a path in Adobe Photoshop?

Soln:- Pen Tool

Freeform Pen Tool

Add Anchor Point

Delete Anchor Point

Convert Point Tool

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

BLUEPRINT- Problem Statements

In today’s world terms like "optimization", "multiutility" and "environment protection" are indispensable and there is a growing need for creating non-conventional energy based models, to come up with creative solutions to tackle the bottlenecks and troubles everywhere and to provide elegant answers to complex problems.

Blueprint being introduced for the first time in NITK is an ideal platform for engineering students to apply the skills and knowledge they possess to come up with creative and pragmatic solutions to these problems posed by the ever-involving industry or daily life.

EVENT FORMAT

· The event comprises of two stages.

· A team can consist of maximum 3 members.

· Participants have to come up with a solution to at least one of the problem statements to qualify as a valid entry.

An abstract of not more than 500 words on the design along with diagrams with specifications and material used wherever applicable, should be mailed, latest by 11^th September, 2008 to magnumopus.nitk@gmail.com.

These solutions will be assessed and the best will be short-listed for the finals which will be held during Magnum Opus ‘08.

Finalists will be intimated latest by 13^th September, 2008 and will have to present their solution to a distinguished panel of judges during Magnum Opus ‘08.

For queries contact: Vikas Kumar 9896629442

R. Arunachalam 9896165305

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AREA COMPARATOR

Theme:

A Japanese high precision tools manufacturing company K.F. PANDA CO. (KFPC) plans to set up its manufacturing plant in India in Kurukshetra in joint venture with SHAKTI METALS (SM), a metal manufacturers and suppliers company, considering the low metal costs. This will give them the edge as far as input costs are concerned. But there’s a hitch.

KFPC has provided SM with a rectangular specimen and wants that the plates produced by SM should not have area less than that of the given specimen. Now SM wants to maximize its profit, to ensure this they need to devise a mechanism by which they can compare the area of the metal plates in the most cost effective way possible requiring as little observation or interaction with the plates.

You being an engineer from the premier institute NITK are given the task of providing a cost effective, yet unique solution to the problem that basically compares the plates produced by SM to the standard specimen provided by the Japanese company.

Constraints:

The mechanism of comparator devised should not use any calculations (while comparing) and is restricted to take just one reading or observation per plate.

Problem Statement:

You are given two, 2-dimensional rectangular profiles cut on a plain piece of paper and you are required to be able to tell which of the two profiles has a larger area. You are allowed to take just one observation per figure.

Note: the size of the rectangular paper sheet would not exceed half the size of an A-4 sheet.

Judging Criteria:

1. Cost effective

2. Innovative

3. Minimum intervention

For finals the teams need to submit a working model of the intended concept. This is the only problem for which the working model is required.

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AUTOMATION IN INSPECTION

Introduction:

As a mechanical engineer, would you prefer doing inspection? Well inspection is one of the worst jobs that a company can offer to engineers. We have automation in the assembly lines, only if it can be incorporated for inspection.

Manual inspection at times results in parallax. Consider a person doing inspection for the entire day; it is quite obvious that his efficiency goes down with time. Automation in inspection will help manufacturer to have a better quality control.

A product can survive in the market only if its quality is superior and is at an affordable price. Both price and quality depends on the production method. Automation helps in improving the quality and also to some extent decreases cost to company.

Problem statement:

A module of a company manufactures a part, rectangular in shape with an off-set hole (shown in figure below), which is used in the assembling unit. Due to flaws in the manufacturing process, sometimes the hole is not present. The manufacturer wants a system (currently done manually) that can separate "finished" (with hole) and "Unfinished" (without hole) products automatically, quickly and reliably. The unfinished products are sent back to the respective modules, and finished products are sent to assembly unit.

After all the operations in the module, the part is sent to inspection unit through a conveyor belt (which goes till assembling unit), after inspection, finished products are sent in the same belt and unfinished products are sent back to the module through another conveyor belt. The inspector’s work was to place the part in the right conveyor belt (he should just separate unfinished product from the lot and put it in the conveyor belt going to the module).

You are the chief engineer of the company mentioned above. You are asked to design a mechanism for automation in inspection. The mechanism should serve the purpose stated above.

Rules:

1. Products are equidistant from each other.

2. Both conveyor belts should not be stopped.

3. Position of the conveyor belt going to module should be assumed suitably.

4. Power can be used to run the mechanism and its source should be a motor

5. Mention all the specifications of the members of the mechanism.

Judging criteria:

Feasibility
Innovation
Accuracy
Cost

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MISSION SOLARIS

Let us recollect an experiment we performed in our school days. We keep a paper under a lens in the sunlight and we find that the paper starts burning.

Have you ever thought something beyond that experiment?

Have you ever thought how much energy is required to burn a piece of paper?

As engineers are we thinking beyond the text? We study about hydro power, thermal plants etc; which was developed by our ancestors. But what is your contribution to the society?

Here is the opportunity.

Introduction:

In India, the ever increasing demand for electricity is putting a lot of pressure on the power sector. India generates most of its power from coal, which is polluting the atmosphere. India being in the tropical region receives abundant sunshine almost throughout the year. So almost throughout the year we get solar energy, which is pure and free of cost. But ironically in India, there is no power plant where solar energy is tapped to generate power unlike some developed countries like Australia.

What may be the reason?

It is the initial cost that is involved. For a government as a whole it may be difficult to invest so much money on a solar plant. But at the same time it will be unwise to waste a free and clean energy source.

If government makes it mandatory for every house to install a device (whose cost is less in comparison to its usefulness ), which uses solar energy, converts it into electricity and stores it, then the problem of energy crisis will be decreased to a great extent. Solar panel is one such option which performs the above mentioned task, but its cost is very high and is not affordable by a common man.

Problem statement:

You are a research engineer under power ministry. The government has decided to implement the plan stated above. So the minister wants you to come up with a design to solve the purpose mentioned above. So you have to design a device that can be installed in all houses to generate and store electricity.

And moreover, government has plans to give subsidy for that device, which may cost less to the government than setting up of a solar plant. The government asks research engineers to make the device affordable. Its cost may be a little high, but it should be equally efficient.