The preparations were done, all efforts put
in, all arrangements done pitch perfect, the stage set for the mega Technical
Carnival of Sardar Patel Institute of Technology: ‘MATRIX 2015’
MATRIX was in its second incarnation, so
expectations were pretty high all around. It’s one SPIT festival which provides
students to display their technical acumen & take innovation to a whole new
level. 9-10 October were the two days the fest experienced the sheer wonder of
the hybrid combination of technology and creativity with a lot of fun.
MATRIX started early on 9th October and was
inaugurated by the principal, Dr. Prachi Gharpure, in the presence of delegates
from Microsoft. Microsoft has come to SPIT to organize their event, the
Microsoft Hackathon, a 24 hour coding event that helped students bring their
coding skills to the forefront and yet learn from it.
There were a number of events this time
around, each taking creativity at its best, signifying how to take innovation
and technology to the next level. The marquee event was the Ultimate Race –
RoboRace & Aquarobotics. Participants had to clear a path using their wired
robots & aquabots through obstacles and difficulties which tested them
rigorously at every stage.
Then there were other events, like Laser
Tag, The Pokémon Showdown, SP Open, Codatron, Lazer Maze, Cicada, and many
more, not to forget fun events like Fun Encrypted and Contraption. Laser Maze
was an event where you had to cross a set maze, reaching the finish point
without touching any of the lasers. Fun Encrypted had a technical twist where
you had to use your mind and clear tasks in a fun way. The Pokémon showdown was
for Pokémon fanatics, SP open was a Rubix Cube challenge, and received the
maximum participants, and Codatron was for all coding fans. Another successful
event was the Tech Race, which was a treasure hunt spread all over Mumbai with
technical tasks to be completed at all checkpoints.
The outcome of each event turned out to be
great and cheerful, but no one knew the inner pain and trouble us organizers
had to go through when planning the events and ensuring everything fell into
place at the right time. I organized the Ultimate Race event, and the whole
perspective of looking at a fest changed for me. Struggling to convince
sponsors, collecting the required material, planning each and every bit of the
event, testing things before the fest, assigning work to your team members,
promoting the event, bringing participants and making them play the event, give
out prizes, and finally wrapping things up: these were just some of the things
that come your way, like steps on the rocky mountain you are climbing.
But at the end of it all, what matters is
not how much you collected from the event, but how many. How many smiles did
you collect at the end? Everyone who came, went back smiling, whether they won
or lost. They praised our work, and that is more satisfying to any event
organizer than anything else, that is what gives you a good night’s sleep. The
icing on the cake was the commendation we got from the special delegates from
Microsoft, who came by specifically to see our event, and praised it in public.
That’s a feather in our cap, a brick in our palace of success.
At the end of all events was the Garba
Nite, when everyone looked pretty in their ethnic wear and enjoyed dancing to
the beats of Garba.
To sum it all up, MATRIX 2015 was a mega
celebration, a ride filled with a lot of thrills, celebrations, and problems,
but once you reached the end, everything else was forgotten and you just
rejoiced in the happiness of running a successful event! These two days were by
far the most joyous and memorable days of my life at SPIT.
This article is part of PaGaLGuY’s innovative Internship programme for engineering students. Currently, two such programmes are on – one on Creative Writing, the other is a Certification on Digital Media. If you are interested in partaking and bagging a certificate, besides learning the nuances of effective writing, mail us at [email protected].