When I won silver medal !
People: Hey, Congratulations!
Me: Hey Man, Thanks :)
People: So, Silver Medal,huh? That means second,huh?
Me: Yeah, Second :)
People: So, who was the first?
This is the conversation I am going through for some days now. So, Yes I won the silver medal as a second prize and certificate in "ANVESHAN: West Zone Research Convention" for my project titled 'Design and Development of Magnetic Fluid Based Rotary Shaft Seal'. Sounds like Alien? Don't worry, It's only fancy words.
First little background on how I get into this competition and what it is all about? In beginning of January, I received the mail from my research supervisor about this ANVESHAN. I thought of participating it and than got busy with the things and ignored it. And a day before the final day of abstract submission my supervisor asked me about the same and I said, yeah,it is ready. Some final touches and I am done and than I started to make poster and abstract. Sat for one and half hour in the evening end I was almost done. Poster was prepared and it was looking great. Next day done with abstract submission and registration process and than nothing. I did nothing, because I don't have to. I am doing the work on same thing from last one and half year. I was just hoping that my device should be ready before the date of convention.
Now about ANVESHAN. So, Association of Indian Universities-AIU conducts the ANVESHAN every year, very few people knows about. FYI, AIU organises the youth festivals and all the zonal and national level sports competition. So, similarly like youth festival, this is research festival. Students presents their projects and compete with eachother. There are three level in ANVESHAN. First level is inter university. An university can send maximum five entries in the next level. So, if there are more than five projects, university selects the best five and send them to the next level. In my case there were only five entries. So selection needed. All went to the next level. The next level is Zonal level. Gujarat falls into the west zone. Similarly Maharashtra and Rajasthan is in west zone. We have to compete with the researchers from three state.
14 and 15 February,2018 were the dates for the convention. Yeah, people celebrated valentines day, we presented the poster. We started our journey from the CHARUSAT on 13th in TOOFAN(That's car or say Trax). We were 12 people and 5 projects from my university. 1 was mine, 2 were from Electronics and communication, 1 was from Pharmacy and 1 from paramedical sciences. Reached the Ganpat University, Kherva at around 5:30 in the evening. After finishing registration they drop us to the accommodation area. To my surprise, they gave us the whole flat. Guys from CHARUSAT, here, take this key, flat is yours for two days. That was beyond what I expected. I shared my room with three engineers. We discussed about what we do and what are the plans. They first they called me sir sir, because I was teaching in last semester and doing Ph.D, they are in last sem of engineering. when I said don't call me sir. Call me Saurabh. We sattled down with Saurabhbhai. I am not used to it but thats ok. Respect,that is what I always welcome. It was interesting to know that two of them are planning to do the masters in US. One is doing internship in PRL. Very straight and clear about their future.
After tossing and turning the whole night, we were ready for the ANVESHAN. Again little information: west zone ANVESHAN has a three rounds. There are five categories also whiz Basic Sciences, Engineering and Technology, Health Science , Agriculture and Humanities. First round is poster presentation. If you get selected in the first round, the second round is Oral presentation and third round is question answer. Poster round was in the afternoon of the first day. I was ready with my poster and my device to demonstrate to judges. After observing my poster, our mentor Dr.Kiran Patel(faculty accompanied us from the CHARUSAT) said, you are winning. Don't worry. This is different from all other. That gained some confidence in me. As luck, mine was the first. Judges started from me.
I explained them briefly about my project in 2-3 minutes and after that they were asking questions in between. The approach they kept was to break the confidence of the student. If you say something , they deny you by saying the lines like, 'That is impossible', 'That is not true' , 'I don't believe' etc etc. So they try to break the confidence and observes that if the students can explain the facts scientifically he or she is explaining or not. The extreme level of denying was when one of the judge told me, 'Don't lie'. I was awestruck. He was denying the fact that we can not measure the crystallite size from X-ray diffraction. When I gave him a Scherrer's formula. He replied, OK,good, go ahead. Go ahead? That's it? You were rude to me :(. But I was happy, because I explained whatever I said. I saw them a demonstration of my device and done. They murmur with eachother and went to the next poster. I was happy and now free. Nothing to do. Have to wait for the results of the poster round.
In the evening, around 6 o'clock we were at the flat. Discussing each others topic. They were showing me the antenna they made on the foam. After they explained everything and shown me the simulation software, I realise that antenna is not always a steel or aluminium wire or rods. They have copper foils in different shapes as antenna. I was amazed. They shown me the antenna in the cellphone. I shown them my magnetic fluid, and how it behave with magnetic field lines. We made a nice video. If the video ever comes to me I will add the youtube link here. In between the discussion, I checked my phone and there were 2 misscalls from unknown number. I called back and guess what, it was from the organizers. Congratulations you are selected in the first round and have to give the presentation tomorrow. Two projects among us was selected. One was mine and another was of Pharmacy guys. So they have selected best 10 projects from the poster round. After dinner,I brought my laptop out. Gave final touches to presentation and went to sleep.
After the good night sleep, I was up at the 06:30, right at the crack of dawn! Revised the presentation once again and went to sleep for half an hour. I directly come to the presentation details. Don't want to bore you with another details. Second and third round is combined. You have 7 minutes to give the presentation and 3 minutes for question answer. It was like interview. They call the participants one by one. Audience is not allowed. This time again, mine was the first project to give the presentation.
I went there. One of the two judges was outside. The judge present told me that, in presentation explain the science behind it. How it works in scientific terms. Another judge arrived and directly told me, you have 10 minutes. Don't elaborate everything, be quick. Now I was confused, I have to keep both the judge happy. I started. I know one of them has doubts about how my device is mounted. So I saw them some basic animations and cleared the doubts of yesterday's session. They asked me questions in between my presentation. I answered them very correctly. After a while, they didn't seem interested in further details. I knew that my judging is already done. I should not bore them with another details. So, I quickly wrap up and finished with the presentation. Now, comes the question, which will decide your mark. The question which can change your result totally. The question about heath hazard, nature hazards due the nano particles we produced. I explain them about the recycling and how my product will not do any damage to mother nature. I was feeling proud on myself. That was quick Saurabh and best too. You nailed it man! Yeah, I can see the happy faces of judges. I know they are satisfied with my work. That's it, all done with three rounds.
Now, results you know. I was second and won silver medal and certificate. The thing you might don't know is, if all goes good, I will be presenting the project at National level in Ambala,Punjab. In national level, all best three projects from 5 zones will compete with eachother on 14th and 15th of March,2018. See you then,
I wanted to add the details about Ganpat University but didn't. I am writing them now. A very big and green campus. Great infrastructure. Swimming pool, cricket ground, tennis court, football ground and in campus hostels and quarters. Campus life of the university is so good. They have bicycle service to wander around in campus called OFO. To know more details about it google OFO. Due to the demise of their director, the bicycle service was closed. But I enjoyed walking in the night with three of my engineer friends. We counted the distance in number of light polls unit. The reviews I got about the bicycle, "Our people don't deserve such type of facility. They don't follow the rules, They make damage to the bicycle, park cycles anywhere other than parking stations, some of them carry the bicycle in their room:D '' I was like, yeah, you are right. We don't deserve such facilities.
That day, I realise the human psychology. If you are on second position, good. But people will ask you who was the first and make you realize there is someone better than you. And you will also realize that first or second, doesn't make any difference to you. There is always someone better than you. Just keep going.