STAB OC 2015-16: Manifesto Review

The Institute General Body Meets (GBMs) are conducted twice every year with the intent to provide all students a convenient mechanism to provide feedback and addressme.co.nz/ball-dresses.html”>dressme.co.nz/ball-dressme.co.nz/ball-dresses.html”>dresses.html”>dressme.co.nz/ball-dresses.html”>dress concern to the student representatives responsible for various amenities on campus.

The STAB 2015-16 GBM is scheduled from 9:00 PM – 09:40 PM on 29th October in LT (PCSA).

The content on this website is strictly the property of Insight and the Students’ Gymkhana IIT Bombay. If you wish to reproduce any content herein, please contact us:
Chief Editors: Mihir Kulkarni, Niranjan Thakurdesai
Mail to: insight [at] iitb.ac.in

Events in red are those that haven’t been started or there has been no satisfactory development in this regard.
Events in orange are those that have been initiated but not completed, or there have been some developments in this regard.
Events in green are those that have been completed as described in the manifesto, or have seen satisfactory developments.

Chirag Shetty, STAB OC, 2015-16

Hobby Clubs
(Electronics, Robotics, Aeromodelling, WnCC, Maths and Physics, Krittika (Astronomy))

• Skill Development: Rock-solid development of hands-on skills required by an engineer(eg: Multiple CAD tools, soldering etc) through workshops which will be taskbased with necessary equipments made available by STAB. The events will cater to PG’s as well as UG’s. Clubs will organize competitions as follow-ups of most workshops.
• – Synergize with Academics: Learning can’t be limited to classroom. The idea is to demonstrate the engineering principles in different fields through simple experiments and their relevance in practice through informal discussions(eg: why is ∇ × ~v defined the way it is?)This should promote interdisciplinary dialogue & appreciation
• Informal sessions and club following: Talks, documentary screening, group discussions, hackathons. An open invitation for anyone to hold a session. Will happen at institute and hostel levels to create platform to ponder, tinker and share technical knowledge and increase PG-UG tech based discussions. Will be done in association with the Hostel Tech Councils. (eg: Night sky watch)
• Visits and Competitions: Arrange visits to places of technical interest with the guidance of our professors and organize all the invitations of technical events received by the Institute and promote and facilitate participation in the same
• Online and offline: Online follow ups of offline discussions and vice versa. Increase online reach to reduce time and money spent on ’poster publicity’ of informal sessions. Along with Insight, ensure timely dissemination of news on technical activities

There has been a massive increase in the number of events and talks conducted by the various clubs, especially Kritika, compared to last two years. Freshmen participation in these events has been excellent, with seniors acting as mentors. However, PG participation has been pretty negligible. Hostel Tech Events have been conducted for some of the clubs with decent participation. While there has been only one visit to Nehru Planetarium (which happens every year); more are planned in next semester. There’s been a significant increase in online publicity, such as the presence of very active Facebook groups for Technovation and the RC Plane Competition.

Technovation:
Ideate and build what you can call ’your own’. Funds, mentorship and access to resources: Program unique to IITB where ideas turn into products

• Technovation mentors: Expand the current mentor group to a 10-member review committee with PG’s from diverse fields, having technical expertise to mentor the projects. Projects to be guided by mentors specific to their field of tech.
• Entry: Open enrollment window throughout the semester. The participant/s has to undergo a ’pre-technovation phase’ where (s)he’ll be mentored to polish the problem statement and make a project plan complete with deadlines.
• The process: Once in the program, participants have easy access to any of the STAB resources. Participants get to represent IITB in various tech fairs and summits. Projects will be reviewed once every month and progress monitored by the managers. Efforts will be made to have media coverage of the projects.
• Dormancy and exit: Participants can choose to keep aside the projects for certain period of time incase of any externalities and revive it later. The projects will exit the program when they’ve either been completed or have reached a stage where the requirements can no longer be fulfilled by the program. However the projects will be guided to larger platforms like SINE or projects under Dean (Research and Development).
• Industrial and HealthTech projects: Increase awareness about projects already floated by industries and professors under Technovation in the student community and encourage to pick one of these as technovation projects through workshops and talks.
• Socially relevant Tech projects: Use the existing structure of TechGSR (Tech Geek Social Responsibility) and support of NSS, to promote technical solutions to social problems relevant to Indian society. Promote translational research in the student community and the spirit of social entrepreneurship.

Technovation still has only 5 mentors, but more are expected in future. The application form for new projects is however available on the website throughout the semester. Two new categories have been added in TechGSR – Interactive Learning for children with disabilities, and Value Addition Projects. Tie ups with National Innovation Foundation have been secured for getting more projects under TechGSR. However, lack of proper publicity has meant very few abstracts have been received, which were not found to be good enough for institute-level projects.

Tinkerers’ Lab (TL)
Make TL the hub of self-learning and innovation with round-the-clock access

• Usage and maintenance: Formulate rules and enforce them to maintain the Tinkerers’ Lab in a good state for easy access by the student community. Improve the inventory management system and equip the lab with all basic requirements regularly.
• ’Order your equipment’: Allow anyone to request technical equipments for TL, given that sufficient justification is provided about utility of the device in future.
• ’tinker@TL’: Promote projects under TL with ’made in TL’ tags which can be used in classroom/lab demonstrations and increase out-of-the classroom tinkering. Have the ’made in TL’ products cater to technological needs in various sectors, within campus to begin with. (eg: Made in TL uC programmers, IITB specific apps etc.)

Tinkerer’s Lab seems to have transformed from an equipment storehouse to a place where interested students from the community hang out. Informal workshops in small groups where seniors share what their knowledge are encouraged. New instruments, if required, can be requested both online and by writing on the whiteboard in the lab. Alumni interaction has increased, with one Arduino workshop conducted by an alumni. Two TL Lectures have been conducted which focussed on hands-on engineering.

ITSP, OKSP, Tech Expo, Weekends and fun! Have events to bring together and connect the tech community of IITB

• Institute Technical Summer Project: Having seen an exponential rise in participation, the basic structure of ITSP will be retained. More emphasis on ITSP-TechExpo-Technovation pipeline. Mentoring will be topic-specific rather than team-specific. Bootcamps on basic skills and lab access before commencement of the ITSP season
• Tech and R&D Exposition: In association with SARC and Academic council, make it an event to put on display the technical prowess of student-driven projects in the institute to the alumni, faculty and students of IITB. Make it a fertile ground for collaborations.
• OKSP: Online Knowledge Sharing Platform: Continue with the ongoing project of creating a mega online repository of all documentations & projects in the institute.
• Tech Weekends: Organize Tech weekends with active participation of Hostel Tech Councils, PG’s and UG’s blending tech with fun events and competitions.

This summer’s ITSP saw healthy participation, with a greater focus on quality of projects. Students were made required to submit documentation for getting certificates, which should help future students. The OKSP is still an ongoing project, with the idea of including BTP and DDP reports along with ITSP documentations. Tech Weekends were organised in all of the UG hostels with decent participation.

General Championships and Hostel Tech councils
Work closely with hostel tech councils to encourage technical activities among hostel inmates

• Freshness in GC’s: Continuing with the current trend, include new GC’s, replacing some repetitive GC’s. Hold workshops on the lines of Hovercraft session this year.
• ’Hostel Tech:’ Help hostel tech councils in procurement of equipments and setting up of Hostel Tech rooms. Hold sessions and group discussions at hostel level.

No Tech GC has happened yet, although there is a plan to start some new GCs. RC Plane Competition is to be made into a GC, while Kritika which currently has no GC under its ambit, is planning to start telescope building and astrophotography GCs. Logic GC hostel intras have been conducted to boost participation and give students an idea of questions. Hostel tech rooms have been refurbished and basic tech equipment is available, reducing the dependence on Tinkerer’s Lab. Hostels have been getting kits used for institute level workshops, so that they can conduct hostel level events.