Shri Khoj 2015
Shri Khoj 2015 saw awe inducing ideas which made me question how someone could humanly come up with such intriguing working models (and also, for people like me, how someone could come up with such science-y ideas in the first place). We managed to snag an interview with Ranveer Uppal of XII-S1 who created one working model himself. Here is what he had to say: What is Shri Khoj? It’s a working model science competition. It’s usually inter-school but this year it was intra-school. It was divided into two categories - one for classes 6-8 and another for classes 9-12. Everyone had to present a working model which the three judges, well, judged based on some criteria. Who all were in your team? Me, Kanishk Vashisht, Shrivats Agarwal, and Vidur Mithal. What did you make? We made a device called HOME, which is essentially a smart security system for your house. What it does is, it senses the temperature, humidity, and gas levels in your house and runs analytics on them. If there is anything amiss in your house, for example if there is a gas leakage or the temperature is too high, it sends you a notification via Twitter. If your house blows up, you can hear about it on Twitter! It also gives you recommendations based on your favourite ambient temperature settings. What inspired you to make what you did? A few weeks ago, a man’s house blew up due to gas leakage. After hearing about this tragedy, with tears in his eyes, Kanishk turned to me and said, “Let's figure out a way to fix this!” No, I’m just kidding. Nothing really inspired us to make it; we just identified one of the many inconveniences in the world and came up with a viable solution to it. Do you remember any funny incidents? I don’t. Seriously. Did you face any problems while making this? Well, one of the main problems we faced was that after all our effort, the device refused to work the day before the competition. So, we had to stay up all night trying to fix it and on top of that I ran out of ginger ale that very day... Would you have any advice for juniors who might want to participate next year? *sounding extremely proud* Yes, they should give every idea they have a shot, no matter how impossible the task may seem at first, because all the good ones do. Have you participated in Shri Khoj before? If so, did you notice any changes this year? Yes I have. Well, this year it was well organised, unlike last year when no one even knew the venue until five minutes before the competition! The overall enthusiasm was better and from what I saw, the level of projects, especially from the juniors, was pretty good. Any future projects you are looking forward to? Well currently, the submission date for my Bio project is coming up - I'm not really looking forward to that. Nothing particular in mind at the moment, but I’m sure we will come up with something new in the near future which shall be just as exciting. Any particular model made by another person which you really liked? Yes, one of the 7th graders made an AM radio out of scrap, and he was explaining concepts on wave dynamics that even some 12th graders have a hard time understanding. I was particularly impressed by his project. -Bani Ahluwalia, XI-C Batch of 2017