DynamiX 2007… Behind the scenes first!
Posted by Prashanth | Filed under Downloads, It's My Life, Quizzing, School Life, Technology
Well, as many of you regulars might know, DynamiX ‘07, Ramjas School’s 4th edition of sucky IT fests was more or less in the hands of Uma and me this year. I would like to start off the post the same way I started it off last year. We used to have really dynamic founders who have now turned alumni namely Roshan, Shashank, Anshuman, Som, Ayush and a few more. Even though these guys weren’t actually pros when coming to organizing events, they were however excellent competitors and used to make every other school chew dust in the computer symposiums before 2005. Since they passed away (Sob..Sob!), Ramjas, in the section of computer symposiums and stuff has been looking at only one direction of development, the negative y-axis. Well this year however, things were destined to be different. A recently turned alumnus, Prashanth Kanduri decides to power up this edition of DynamiX along with the existing clan primarily consisting of Uma and Sanchit. The saga of problems start here. And this time, since these problems are already solved, I decide to keep this to myself. Close buddies in the Geek Community know about them.
Anyway, we must pay a good deal of homage in the form of thankfulness to our alumni for teaching us with live demonstration for 3 years in a row on How not to organize a computer fest! If one of you is actually reading this, let me elaborate and explain myself correctly before you start thinking otherwise.You guys were technically very sound and had a great deal of gray matter in the head as well, but then none of the events seemed to have got competitive participation that it deserved. On top of that, the paper work was usually finished in the nick of time. The events were just way too innovative or high minded for the kind of participation they received.
This time however, I had different plans. Plans to start off the paper work much before the event dates were even decided. It was just me and Uma for the most brainstorming of events, i.e Quiz, Crossword, CodeX, Surprise Event and Group Discussion. Other than that, I wanted to settle things out and show some nuts in the geek community that a good quiz containing trivia means much more than a history test. And also that a clever crossword can contain answers that people have heard of. Other than that we wanted to have fun with our participants. Speaking of participation, I tried to mob in as much as I could through my tentacles spreading into the community. Although we officially sent invites to over 50 schools, just 22 could actually make it owing to the fact that the event date was decided on a Monday when most schools have a test. Bad Planning… I know but couldn’t actually do much. I am no Ramjasian.
Uma and I started working on the quiz and crossword way back, somewhere in the end of August, with quiz tilting on my side and the crossword tilting on hers. I wanted to keep the quiz current, the TCS IT Wiz way and still make it fun making people go “Sheesh! I knew this!!” after every pass. And then I did learn a great deal from some of the quizzes I attended this year and I decided to incorporate more visual rounds and the infinite bounce system in both the quiz and the crossword. The idea for the latter was omitted though. But then starting work early had its own paybacks and prices. For once, I could attend every successful event, borrow ideas from them as I have never done anything like it before. You probably might not know/believe this, but then I am fairly a newbie in the world of quizzing. But then after each event, we had to scrap out a great deal of questions and clues or to the least modify them to a great deal. I was especially scared during the TCS IT Wiz (which is actually my kind of a quiz) which was why I saw the entire final round despite suffering from successive attacks of Loser’s Lurgy of type WARP ‘06!
So then we also had the task of getting the sponsors. The task as such isn’t a big one. The companies start showing interest as soon as you start speaking of an IT fest, inter-school computer symposiums, prizes, publicity and stuff. But then all of them seemed to get cold feet as soon as it was announced that it was Ramjas School doing all this, whether it was Airtel, HCL, Chip and many more! “What’s the school name again?”, “Where is it?”, “Who is conducting the whole thing, students of the school?”… we were looked through the eyes of skepticism and doubt as I proceeded in selling our show to them like a marketing agent. Well, perhaps we are not the ones to blame for that kind of a response from the potential sponsors. Finally, after some good negotiation and grace from a supreme power, we finally got no cash sponsors, but then two great ones for the prizes. We had Jasubhai Media, the publishers of Digit and Skoar! giving away magazines and free issue coupons. We also had Cybermedia the publishers of PCQuest and Living Digital giving away annual subscription for the first comers. I know they are rival publishers, but then they don’t know that they co-existed! Ssshhhh….
But still, single-handedly I guess I did a pretty decent job at getting these two to the event. Anyway, the school agreed to spend some amount from its treasury for the trophies, certificates and the refreshments (about which I am not interested to write!). Coming back to the brainstorming work, let me remind you guys once again that it was just Uma and I involved. The alumni gang, which turned handy during last year’s fest has been scattered across the globe now. The reachable ones couldn’t make it either, due to 42 unique excuses which I wasn’t bothered to listen. And honestly, I must say brag that as a quizzer, as a thinker, as a techie, and as a guy on whom you can depend on organizing events, I have grown a lot in the past year after close association with one of our alumni Roshan Shariff, Uma as well as many close buddies and especially GQ in the geek community.
Anyway, after tons of efforts, countless hours of arguments, and Skoar!(s) of compromise, we finally got the date finalized on the 26th and 27th. As an external student, I wasn’t actually supposed have as much say in the event as an internal Dynamite should. Even then, with grace shown from Pandey sir, our computer HoD and cooperation shown from most members in the Dynamix Clan, I could actually suggest a lot for the event. Even though we had bigger plans, we couldn’t really execute them as we wanted. Will blog about this as soon as I receive my Letter of Acknowledgment from the Principal of Ramjas… Can’t take the risk you know!
For all those who missed coming to the event, please solve this CodeX clue. Read between the lines above… you have no idea on what you missed!
Finally we ended up with a kick-ášš crossword, a fun quiz and clever CodeX paper along with a nice idea for the Surprise Event (courtesy Dhawal, Uma’s biological brother!) courtesy the two of us. So many of the posts that you might read in the blogosphere might be actually praising the two of us. But then we do owe a lot to the rest of the clan, for getting the paper work done, convincing the Principal, installing stuff, getting the rusty computers usable, letting me in, for being co-operative and a lot more. Let me roll in the credits… Sanchit, Anirudh, Tanmay, Tushar, Nisheeth, Nikhil, Shakti, Tarun, Stefan and a few forgotten ones. Also ex-Dynamites Anshu and Rahul for the site as well as getting a laptop for us for the quiz and crossword finals. You know its Ramjas… A laptop might sound like a big thing there!
More about how the event took off and a review of it from the organizer’s eyes in the next post, till then… adios! FIITJEE Packages stay untouched since forever! For now, a few downloads for you people… Too impatient to add in answers to that. Just work it out till then. The answer keys should be up in the next post.
- DX 07 Quiz Archive (Slides + Prelims)
- DX 07 Crossword Archive (Finals + Prelims)
- CodeX Presentation (PPS Slideshow)
- and… Wallpapers!
Feedback would be appreciated, it wasn’t easy making all that stuff up. 
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4 Responses to “DynamiX 2007… Behind the scenes first!”
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Prateek Says:
December 13th, 2007 at 4:57 amThe answer shud be Ctrl Alt Del - to the codex clue….
Prateek
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Prashanth Says:
January 5th, 2008 at 11:33 amyaar, I actually mean to insult the people who didn’t make it, don’t you get it… “read between the Lines”..??
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Rakshit Says:
November 17th, 2008 at 8:21 amCan i know wat is the answer to d 2nd picture of 2007 dynamix quiz prelims….
it was 2 yellow triangular rings interlocked…. -
Prashanth Says:
November 17th, 2008 at 9:41 amThe answer is Parallels… the virtualization software maker. Makes software for interoperability between Windows and Mac. Also working for other Unix platforms.
