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The second day at St. Stephen’s National Science Fest started with the interdisciplinary Competition of Young Scientists and Enthusiasts (CYSAE). 12 teams started off in the competition, out of which 8 moved on to the second round. The second round comprised of programming problems and required participants to design algorithms in any programming language. With the ability to approach a maximum of five problems in one hour, six teams moved on to the final round on the basis of the same. In the final round, while four teams were from Stephen’s, the other two were from Hansraj College and IIT Delhi. In the final round, the six teams were supposed to first choose between Physics and Chemistry, and then solve a set of five questions based on that subject in the span of one hour. The final results of the competition are still awaited.

sysae round3
Students solving Physics problems in the final round of CYSAE.

The initial events of the day also had a Scientifik Exhibition on Innovative Practices for the Conservation of Natural Resources judged by Dr. Kinkini Dasgupta Misra, from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. Out of the 5 contenders, the team from Army Public School was declared the winning team.

Moving from academia, the day also witnessed a General Science Quiz prepared by the Quiz Society of the college and conducted by Debobrato Sen Sharma and Akshit Goyal of the St. Stephen’s Quiz Society. 18 teams competed in a written preliminary round, out of which 7 teams moved on to the finals. The quiz had 42 questions coming from different scientific fields. The first position was obtained by a mixed team from Stephen’s and Hindu College, comprising of Ayan, Prerna and Rahul. However, an all Stephen’s team of Rabin, Sukrita, Surabhi bagged the second position. Talking about his favourite question in the quiz, Debobrato says, “We had a question where we told people about the characteristics of a spider and showed them a picture of the same. An additional fact was that the name of the spider was inspired by a character from the Jungle Book. Many people worked it out, despite seeing it for the first time.”

In Kapture, a digital imaging competition, students were given two hours to go around the campus, click photographs and then edit them on digital editing software to create their entry for the competition. 15 teams competed to create images under the theme The Dark side of St. Stephen’s. Andriyas A. Silas and Zoya Singh of St. Stephen’s won the competition in an entry that reflected towards an existing gender bias.

The Winning Entry at Kapture – Photography and Digital Imaging event.

Another fun event of NSF was ‘Absurd Theory’ – a competition about presenting theories and backing them up by scientific reasoning. The winning theory of the competition was presented by Mitrajyoti Ghosh of St. Stephen’s College. Mitrajyoti in his theory went on to propose that human kind existed on the planet before dinosaurs. Talking about absurd theories, he says, “Absurd Theory to me is about the fun in science. It shows that a scientific temperament can be applied to any situation. The fun of theorical science is that you don’t necessarily have to think of the big questions. Even the small questions can give you a lot of scope for imagination!”

Apart from the competitive events, the day also had talks on Wavelets and Quantum Mechanics in sessions with Dr. Prasanta Panigrahi of Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Kolkata and Dr. Sameer Sapra of IIT Delhi respectively.

Featured Image: Dr. Prasanta Panigrahi

The National Science Fest at St. Stephen’s College began with the ‘Inaugural Ceremony’ at 2 pm on 24th January. Principal Rev. Dr. Valson Thampu inaugurated the event with a motivational speech encouraging the young science students to strive for the best, followed by a screening of National Science Fest 2014 official video.

Dr. Patrick Dasgupta, presently a professor at Department of Physics and Astrophysics, University of Delhi, in a NSF Talk, spoke about the fundamentals of black holes, be it Schwarzschild radius or Hawking Radiation. Known for his work in the field of gravitational waves, quasars and cosmology he went on to present the ‘Information Loss Paradox’ associated with black holes. The talk was followed with a question-answer session where the members of the audience, varying from undergraduate students to research scholars, interacted with Dr. Dasgupta. After Dr. Dasgupta’s talk, the triathlon of events began at various venues of the college with the Paper Presentation event in Room A, Debugging Electronicz event at the New Physics Lecture Theatre (NPLT) and a talk on “The Fascinating World of Chemistry” by Dr. Subho Mozumdar, a faculty member of the Department of Chemistry at University of Delhi.

circuit

‘Debugging Electronicz’ was based on the idea of testing the participants’ interest and expertise in electronics, and their capability in debugging flawed electronic circuits. It led to an intense final between the two best teams on an actual large circuit, basically a convoluted Adder circuit, where the finalists had to find out the flaws inherent in the realized circuit. Finally, in an all-Stephanian final, Ankit Dhanuka and Motaram clinched the first position, while Abel and Ojasvi received the second prize.

Along the main corridor, in Room A, the paper presentation competition took off with 15 student entries from all over the country belonging to various courses of study. Sahil Mathur, student of Information Technology & Mathematics at the Cluster Innovation Centre (CIC) earned the top spot for his paper on “Developing Genetic Algorithm inspired intelligent routing protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks”. The second prize was shared by Raktim Sen and Manasij Pal Chowdhury of Stephen’s and an individual entry by Deepto Mozumdar.

The National Science Fest will be organised by St. Stephen’s College on 24th, 25th and 26th January 2014. The event is being headed by the Students’ Union Society of the college, in collaboration with the Computer Science Society, Chemistry Society, Electronics Society, Photography Society, Environment Society, Debating Society and Quiz Club. The fest aims at offering a mix of competitive and academic activities. These range from a paper presentation to a treasure hunt.

Mrittunjoy Guha Majumdar, Senior Secretary for NSF, says, “This year we present yet another edition of the Stephanian scientific extravaganza with many more electrifying events and a lot more enthusiasm to make this event memorable.”

First day brings an interdisciplinary triathlon of events with Debugging Electronicz, Paper Presentations and a Science Quiz. This trail of events continues to the second day with CYSAE (Competition for Young Scientists and Enthusiasts) and the Scientifik Exhibition.

Amal Jahan, General Secretary says, “We are expecting an overwhelming response given the trend that has been set for the past few years. Enormous energy and effort has been invested in planning NSF’14 to make it an interesting and exciting affair.”

The fest promises to pose ultimate challenges for the electronics enthusiasts with events like, “Debugging Electronicz” followed by the NSF talks where revered veterans like Dr. Prasanta Panigrahi and Dr. Patrick Dasgupta will talk about interesting topics such as Black Hole evaporation and Quantum Dots. The new twist to this year’s NSF is for the explorers with a scientific bent of mind with events like the Treasure Hunt.

For those consummate in rhetoric, Day 3 schedules the NSF Debate, with the motion “Whether parents should be allowed to choose the genetic composition of their kids!”

NSF ’14 is expected to conclude with the ‘Scientifik Exhibition’ wherein participants will be presenting posters and models on the topic “Innovative Practices for Conservation of Natural Resources”, which will be judged for the top spot by Dr. Kinkini Dasgupta, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.

List of Events:

Day 1: 24th January, 2014

  •  Opening Ceremony
  • NSF Talks
  1. “Black hole evaporation and information loss problem” by Dr. Patrick Dasgupta
  2. “The Fascinating World of Chemistry” by Dr. Subho Mozumdar
  • NSF Science Quiz
  • Debugging Electronicz
  • Paper Presentation

Day 2: 25th January, 2014

  • CYSAE (Competition for Young Scientists and Enthusiasts)
  • Scientifik Exhibition
  • NSF Talks
  1. “Small Waves are Making Big Waves: Wavelets in Action” by Dr. Prasanta Panigrahi
  2. “From Quantum Mechanics to Quantum Dots” by Dr. Sameer Sapra
  • Absurd Theory
  • Kapture Photography and Digital Imaging Event

Day 3: 26th January, 2014

  • NSF Debate
  • Treasure Hunt

For more information, you can visit www.nsf2014.wordpress.com or write to [email protected]

Note: DU Beat is the official media partner for NSF 2014.

After the brouhaha over the fairytale Economics result, Delhi University has now declared the first year semester results of three major Science streams. Students have, in general, performed commendably in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. However, there is an obvious disappointment on the part of students over no one achieving a 99 as expections had sky-rocketed following the Economics scores.

The Mathematics results were declared on 31st December, while those of Physics and Chemistry were declared on the 2nd day of the new year. The colleges that have performed best overall are Hans Raj, Hindu, Miranda House, St. Stephen’s and Maitreyi.

A student of Hans Raj College has topped Physics honours with a 92%, with the overall result of Hans Raj itself being the best. Close contenders were Hindu College, followed by St. Stephen’s and Miranda House.

For Chemistry, the highest score is again a 92%, obtained by a student of Hindu College. The top colleges for Chemistry are Hindu, Hans Raj and Miranda with only Sri Venkateswara in South Campus that has managed to come close. Mathematics Honours saw a highest score of 98%, a New Year’s Eve delight for the Maths departments across DU that have been struggling to improve results over the past two years. The topper belongs to Lady Sri Ram College, however the best overall result was yet again bagged by Hans Raj College.

The subject saw a remarkably good set of marks being obtained by South Campus students as well, with JMC, Gargi and Sri Venkateswara in the lead. While a considerable number of students have performed exceedingly well in these subjects, there are also substantial number who would be required to take some exams again.