Another post after a long time! But we have a valid reason this time as well. Team SynapsE partnered Team Manfest for the first time in presenting Manfest Online. As everybody knows that the online events of Manfest faced some issues in last few years, so we along with Manfest Core got together and chalked out a plan for the online events and also get the wrinkles out of the way.
We started off with "Wild Goose Chase"- an online treasure hunt developed entirely by PGP23 guys. A great effort with both mind and time, it was a huge success and till date only a handful have been able to crack the hunt. All credit to Ilango, Naveen, Nitol, Rahul, Sandeep, Vineet and Vishnu for this.
The second event was "QuiZest" - a quizzing module - spaced over three days. The twist was the bidding functionality. Each team had to rank their areas of interest out of the list of topics marked for the day. They would get the questions proportionately from these areas. i.e you would get more questions from your top ranked areas as compared to areas ranked lower. Then the teams were supposed to bid some amount before they could even see the question. So the more a team bids, the more their upside and also more was the risk of losing. The first day was based on management areas and topics for quiz were - Finance, Marketing, Economics, Operations and Systems. Day 2 was all about sports - Football, Cricket, Olympics et al. The final day saw a hectic activities as it was all about media and entertainment - music, literature, movies. There were daily prizes as well as prizes for overall winners. The event ended successfully with participation from all reputed management institutes from India with over 200 teams playing (i.e. 200x2 players).
The next event was all about finance and forex - FinIcky, the currency trading simulation. Again a three day event, the simulation platform named Spyder (System for dealing in Pound, Yen, Dollar, Euro and Rupee) was developed in-house. The system allowed for trading in the five currencies as mentioned above with Rupee being the base currency. The objective of the game was simple - maximize your portfolio value in rupee terms. There were 4 rounds each day - 10 mins each simulating 1 month of real time. So effectively we had 12 ticks over the course of game. The platform provided seamless trading experience with real time quotes and transaction clearing and was close to what it is in reality. The major challenge was to maintain enough liquidity and also to ensure that teams transact with each other. We allowed short selling and dealing with the central bank just to ensure liquidity in the market and put some restrictions to encourage inter-team transactions. The participation grew with again 200 teams (of average 4 players, 3-5 players were allowed) participating.
Oh ya, we also conducted the elimination round for CALL FOR ARMS in between the two events.
The final event - the flagship was the Corporate Lords - a strategy simulation game where teams acting as team managers selected cricket players, fields etc in order to win. The game was again a 3-day event with 4 rounds in the first two days which led to selection of 8 teams which played the rounds on the final day. The main challenge was to ensure scalability of the system. We had to ensure that the server is able to take up the load Corporate Lords usually generates Here again, we came out with flying colors!! Hail Rritu and Sandeep for this!
Moral of the story - Manfest Online was successful after few failed attempts. We take credit for that and thank Team Manfest for their support. Its a pity some people still feel that we are not "core" to the effective working of campus.
IIML is on an un-ending journey of innovation driven by engines of creation maintained and developed by us.
Aghanim is the online placement system developed, designed and maintained by Team SynapsE. What this system does is that it basically automates the entire pre-placement process.. so that the guyz at the helm of placements can concentrate on more important issues and also the batch can have a reliable and easy-to-use system.
Aghanim is one system which has undergone a lot of changes since the time we took over last year - 3 processes have resulted in 3 different versions of Aghanim. Click the thumbnails below to appreciate the changes
Besides the looks, the features have also changes. It is more robust and more comprehensive- most of the scenarios for company application have been covered. It also is intended to be a one-stop placement solution for students of IIML. It will be linked to the summer experience repository and also the general information which will help students in their placements.
The back-end side has seen the major changes - the DB has been reduced from 24 to just 6 tables (still not in 3NF, but closer to it now). Osiris which was used last year for final placements has been integrated into Aghanim this year. An easy-to-eye interface and more complete functionality - and you get another reason for why SynapsE is so popular amongst the students.
Aghanim is one system which has undergone a lot of changes since the time we took over last year - 3 processes have resulted in 3 different versions of Aghanim. Click the thumbnails below to appreciate the changes
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Besides the looks, the features have also changes. It is more robust and more comprehensive- most of the scenarios for company application have been covered. It also is intended to be a one-stop placement solution for students of IIML. It will be linked to the summer experience repository and also the general information which will help students in their placements.
The back-end side has seen the major changes - the DB has been reduced from 24 to just 6 tables (still not in 3NF, but closer to it now). Osiris which was used last year for final placements has been integrated into Aghanim this year. An easy-to-eye interface and more complete functionality - and you get another reason for why SynapsE is so popular amongst the students.
43 days since the last post - a long time in the ever-dynamic culture of Team SynapsE!! Sorry for not posting for so long, so may reasons- exams, assignments, projects and 20-20 WC ( the daily routine for us, esp Suraj who never missed a ball on which Sachin got out!), but more specifically, we were busy!! Busy with what?? Busy with some new initiatives. Ok, lets list them down..
1. E-Sikandar was conducted successfully. An event from Infiniti's cradle, it was conducted by us on a much larger scale than last year , 4 Events- Quake, Counterstrike, NFS (HP2) and AoE... It was held over 3 evenings( on 5,6,7 October) in the mess and got a huge participation.
2. We launched the new version on Aghanim - The online placement system at IIML. More features, new looks and lesser bugs is what characterizes Aghanim-2007-08. A dedicated post on Aghanim is in the queue.
3. We were successful in streaming the 20-20 WC through Red5 , but didn't broadcast it as we feared a repeat of 50overs WC (where India lost after we started streaming.. ). Nevertheless, SynapsE TV is now more of a reality than a concept.
4. Also, a couple of Alumni-Student interaction specific sites were created - one for Alumni Mentorship Programme, and one for CV Review of Pgp1's. We got a few encouraging words from Alums about these, but we never stop expecting more.
Besides these tech-related stuff, we did some more HR related activities and size of Team SynapsE has swelled by 3 - Nitol Dutta, Sandeep Solanki and Vishnu Gupta are the three new members to join us. So SynapsE is now a 13 member team (6PGP2's and 7 PGP1's)..!! We are just awaiting the end of summer placements so that we can have another bash.
Some updates about the old members - Rritu is still busy with his Ubuntu mania, while Shrinath is busy with controlling himself from becoming an Ubuntu-covert. Suraj is busy with calculating the utility of Sachin in Indian team, while Mrigen just came back from a well-deserved trek. Amit is trying to stretch his grades while all four fachchas - Ilango, Naveen, Rahul and Vineet are busy with their Summer processes (besides some chic-hunting)..
As for me, I am still busy with figuring out what to do...!!
1. E-Sikandar was conducted successfully. An event from Infiniti's cradle, it was conducted by us on a much larger scale than last year , 4 Events- Quake, Counterstrike, NFS (HP2) and AoE... It was held over 3 evenings( on 5,6,7 October) in the mess and got a huge participation.
2. We launched the new version on Aghanim - The online placement system at IIML. More features, new looks and lesser bugs is what characterizes Aghanim-2007-08. A dedicated post on Aghanim is in the queue.
3. We were successful in streaming the 20-20 WC through Red5 , but didn't broadcast it as we feared a repeat of 50overs WC (where India lost after we started streaming.. ). Nevertheless, SynapsE TV is now more of a reality than a concept.
4. Also, a couple of Alumni-Student interaction specific sites were created - one for Alumni Mentorship Programme, and one for CV Review of Pgp1's. We got a few encouraging words from Alums about these, but we never stop expecting more.
Besides these tech-related stuff, we did some more HR related activities and size of Team SynapsE has swelled by 3 - Nitol Dutta, Sandeep Solanki and Vishnu Gupta are the three new members to join us. So SynapsE is now a 13 member team (6PGP2's and 7 PGP1's)..!! We are just awaiting the end of summer placements so that we can have another bash.
Some updates about the old members - Rritu is still busy with his Ubuntu mania, while Shrinath is busy with controlling himself from becoming an Ubuntu-covert. Suraj is busy with calculating the utility of Sachin in Indian team, while Mrigen just came back from a well-deserved trek. Amit is trying to stretch his grades while all four fachchas - Ilango, Naveen, Rahul and Vineet are busy with their Summer processes (besides some chic-hunting)..
As for me, I am still busy with figuring out what to do...!!
So you're reinstalling the OS on a computer whose hardware disc you don't have, and in all your wisdom you forget to back up the drivers before formatting. What's worse, you don't even know what make the hardware components are in your assembled PC. What do you do? You download the BelArc Advisor.
This is a nifty little tool that conducts a PC Audit and tells you where your hardware comes from, so you can track the manufacturer online and download your drivers and all that.
Work related updates:
One. Blondie's been revamped and has met with a quite favourable response. We now have fancy drop down menus, the works...
Two. Streaming of live videos at IIML was done with VLC player last year, but the output wasn't satisfactory. We're shifting to flv streaming this year. A Red5 server has been setup in Zion (for the unenlightened, Red5 is a Java-based open source flash server). Once we get the runtime flv encoding straight, we'll be ready to go.
In other news, Rritu almost converted yours truly to Ubuntu. (The sly bugger offered me an Ubuntu CD and threw in an Ubuntu sticker for good measure). Yours truly is currently debating the ethics of experimenting on another's machine before trying it on his own.
This is a nifty little tool that conducts a PC Audit and tells you where your hardware comes from, so you can track the manufacturer online and download your drivers and all that.
Work related updates:
One. Blondie's been revamped and has met with a quite favourable response. We now have fancy drop down menus, the works...
Two. Streaming of live videos at IIML was done with VLC player last year, but the output wasn't satisfactory. We're shifting to flv streaming this year. A Red5 server has been setup in Zion (for the unenlightened, Red5 is a Java-based open source flash server). Once we get the runtime flv encoding straight, we'll be ready to go.
In other news, Rritu almost converted yours truly to Ubuntu. (The sly bugger offered me an Ubuntu CD and threw in an Ubuntu sticker for good measure). Yours truly is currently debating the ethics of experimenting on another's machine before trying it on his own.
Who will watch the watchmen?
There are rules in place on campus that restrict the usage of the batch email id to only committees and in exceptional cases, individuals with urgent communications for the batch. Misuse is liable to be penalized with blocking of access to campus intranet and internet facilities for a period of time. These rules were set with the consent of the student community in order to reduce the amount of spam circulating, and to avoid flooding the inboxes of those not concerned with the issue under discussion.
Having set the context, I'll come to a peculiar problem we faced a week ago, around the time of the freshers' party. There was an issue which a sizeable section of the student population felt required immediate redressal, and it found an outlet in the form of an appeal to the concerned authorities and the rest of the batch over mail, asking them to expedite the issue. This mail in turn evoked many responses, grievances, queries and shows of solidarity, which flew fast and thick across the LAN in complete disregard of the policies in place. It took Synapse over a week of bargaining to get the institute to let us retain our POP3 access, and in return we promised not to give them grief through abuse of mass mail. We see this as one of our minor triumphs, and do not view anyone who abuses it with a very charitable eye. This is irrespective of the cause the sender champions.
As the committee handling campus IT infrastructure, it was our duty to maintain peace over the LAN, but the sheer number of people engaged in debating the issue brought on a few fundamental questions into focus - Are people made for the rules or are rules made for people? However, an alternate line of thought immediately crops up - Are mobs above the law? [Incidentally, here's a link to an excellent article on the topic : http://indiauncut.com/iublog/article/mobs-are-above-the-law/] Is the community not obligated to follow the rules it sets itself, and thus bear the penalty for flouting them?
Team SynapsE- The Induction Party
1 Comments Published by Ilango on Saturday, August 18, 2007 at 10:23 AM.
Team SynapsE decided to have its induction party for the fachas a few days after the announcement of the selections, and maybe for good reason. The three day wait gave us fachas a great insight into the occupational hazards of working for Team SynapsE.
Wednesday could not have come at a better time for us as we trooped out to Mint to relieve ourselves of the heat we were facing on campus due to some 'messy' affairs.
Experiencing some great Italian food and a cool ambience, we sat down to exchange stories and got to know of the various escapades of the team over the previous year, especially enthralling ones of the great Mojoe, who quite recently, orchestrated our very own 'Revenge of the Nerds' :D Well, specifics at a later time, maybe.
After a surprise birthday cake for Rahul, the team took off to IIML to beat the 11 pm rule, only to find the campus missing us due to some trouble with the DC server.
Well, back to some firefighting, but for Team SynapsE, it's all in a day's work! :-)
Wednesday could not have come at a better time for us as we trooped out to Mint to relieve ourselves of the heat we were facing on campus due to some 'messy' affairs.
Experiencing some great Italian food and a cool ambience, we sat down to exchange stories and got to know of the various escapades of the team over the previous year, especially enthralling ones of the great Mojoe, who quite recently, orchestrated our very own 'Revenge of the Nerds' :D Well, specifics at a later time, maybe.
After a surprise birthday cake for Rahul, the team took off to IIML to beat the 11 pm rule, only to find the campus missing us due to some trouble with the DC server.
Well, back to some firefighting, but for Team SynapsE, it's all in a day's work! :-)
All committees on campus are done with Facha recruitment, and we've landed ourselves four extremely competent guys. Welcome aboard Vineet, Rahul, Naveen and Ilango. Good to have you guys on the team.
Induction's a simple affair at Synapse. We make the fachas sit in Zion and bore them with advice and a lot of arbit fundaes till they start squirming in their seats, and then tell them the magic word that unlocks all electronic doors at IIML - '*********'. Party scheduled Tuesday night.
