Raman Khatri and I had gone for a programming competition, Edge 2004 to Kulachi Hansraj on 21st. There were two questions to be solved in 40 minutes. The questions were easy but we could not finish them on time. It was more of a speed test rather than a logic test. There was a slight error in the 1st program and we lost time trying to correct it. We finished one and a half questions. So, basically we could not win anything. Ahlcon Public School came first in programming. But, nevertheless it was an experience.

-Swati Gupta(XI-I)

As we all know, the exunclan.com Members page contains a list of all members, with their email addresses and photographs. Now, the photos of many members are missing from there. For this purpose, I ask the following members to send in their photos as soon as possible, by email, to exunclan@gmail.com.

1. Dhruv Agrawal
2. Nikhil Agarwal
3. Swati Gupta
4. Ishita Kapur
5. Dhruv Kumar
6. Arushi Gabrani (!!??)
7. Udit Rastogi
8. Sanchit Bhatia
9. Gaurav Mishra
10. Aayush Kumar
11. Anant Jain
12. Saumya Kharbanda

Ever since Digex has taken over like the Undead, the camera is no longer very easy to find; it previously used to be in Sir’s room all the time, but now it’s impossible to find it. Since we have amongst our midst two Digex+Exun members (Gaurav Mishra, Manas Gautam), I request them to organize a photo session after the exams and take pictures of all the mentioned people. Those who have digital photos of themselves, please send them in as soon as you read this; if you have an analog photo and a scanner, do the same.

Also, I have asked Manas (are you listening?) a long time ago to collect the pictures of Exun events from the Digex folder and put it in a folder I can find them. This includes pictures from the “Sessions@Exun: PHP” event as well as the “Inter-section Class X Quiz”. Again, I ask both Manas and Gaurav to act on this as soon as possible.

Since there are exams in the middle of all this, I expect this job to be complete by 15th October.

–Karan

Exun^{We take printouts}

Here’s a very nice tip for FireFox power users. Type in about:config in the address bar and press Enter. You will see a whole lot of options with values and all; there will also be a Filter bar on the top, which you can use to find the desired setting.

One irritating thing is the sound FF makes in the ‘Find as you type’ feature when it doesn’t find anything. If you want to turn it off, then find the value called:

accessibility.typeaheadfind.enablesound

Right-click on it, and click Toggle.

Also, some people wonder why, when they had to change the name from FireBird to something else, why they didn’t make it completely different, and why they chose FireBird in the first place? Well, for these answers, type in about:mozilla in the address bar and press Enter; if you still don’t get it, post it in the comments and I shall explain.

Best of luck with the half-yearlies,

–Karan

Here are the Senior programming questions that were asked in e-Spice 2004. Intrested students may download it and attempt the questions. I would request all the Exun programmers to attempt these questions. Junior programmers can attempt the 6 markers.

Click Here To Download

Results

Overall Trophy – Tagore International School

Runners Up – Delhi Public School RK Puram

Quiz – First Position – Abhisheyk Gaur (XI), Karan Misra (XII)

Group Discussion – First Position – Bhavya Khanna (XII)

Gaming – Third Position – Sunny Kumar Aditya (XI)

Other events that Exun participated in

Digital Imaging – Ishita Kapur (XI)

Programming – Nisheeth Sharma (XII), Souvik Das Gupta (XII)

Web Designing – Maanick Nangia (XII), Prateek Rungta (XII)

PowerPoint Presentation – Abhijit Das (IX), Anant Jain (IX)

I have to make a special note of Ishita’s work; her digital imaging was excellent, and it’s a very sorry fact that she did not win; however, she did get through to the Finals.

The quiz went very well. Our points tally was 28, while the next best team had 6 points. So we had just less than 5 times the points of the other teams. And we’re talking about good teams like Mother’s International and DPS Vasant Kunj, who were seemingly stumped by questions that were quite easy in our opinion. The whole Quiz (questions for both prelims and finals, as well as the visuals) are available for download. Click here to download the Quiz Questions. (Some extra info: The secret documents at MIT’s AI Labs are called the Jargon Files).

Another mention goes to the fact that we lost the overall by only 1 point and 1 frag. If Sunny had got one more frag in UT, he would’ve come second and we would have got the Overall. Hard luck I say!

–Karan

MSM = Mt. St. Mary’s

Quiz (Economics + Computers)

The team has been decided as of now, as:

1. Karan Misra
2. Maanick Nangia
3. Abhisheyk Gaur
4. Undecided

Programming in C++

2 participants

Programming in Visual Basic

2 participants

Programming in BASIC (Classes VI-VIII)

2 participants

Ad-Enacting

Business Perspective

Slogan Making

Web Designing

Flash Animation

3D Graphics Designing

Details are not available as yet, though they have a website at www.msmschool.com.

Digital Imaging

• Eligibility – Classes XI and XII
• Max. number of teams per school = 1
• Max. number of participants = 2
• Time allotted = 2 hours

Adobe Photoshop

• Eligibility – Classes VIII to X
• Each team is allotted a maximum of 1.5 hours to make their presentation.
• Topic of the presentation will be given on the spot.
• The presentation should contain at least 5 layers.
• Maximum number of teams per school = 1.
• Maximum number of participants per team = 2.

Web Designing

• Eligibility – Classes IX and XI
• Maximum number of teams per school = 1.
• Maximum number of participants per team = 2.
• Topic will be given on the spot.

Gaming

• Eligibility – Classes IX and X
• Max. number of teams per school = 1.
• Max. number of participants per team = 1.

Contacts

Siddhant Batra 30963877

Kavya Jaiswal 9891057488

Comment as usual. Lots of events coming up!

Senior Quiz (2 teams, 2 participants each)

• Classes 11, 12
  
• 6 teams will qualify the written preliminary round for the on-stage finals.
• Enigmatic quiz based on general awareness, WAP, languages (C, C++, VB, Java), graphics, network security, data compression.

Junior Quiz (2 teams, 2 participants each)

• Classes 6, 7, 8
  
• 6 teams will qualify the written preliminary round for the on-stage finals.
• Enigmatic quiz based on general awareness, convergence, OS (Windows, Linux, UNIX), Graphics, Software Packages (Flash, Dreamweaver, etc.), Basic hardware knowledge.

Digital Imaging (1 team, 2 participants)

• Classes 10, 11, 12
  
• Topic – remixing of songs encourages entertainment or creates cynicism.
• 1 hour will be allotted to each team to make the presentation on the spot.
• Participants may bring their own clipart and pictures. Software provided will be Adobe Photoshop 7.0.

Symposium (1 team, 2+1 participants)

• Classes 11, 12
• Topic – Forensic Science and computers go hand in hand.
• Time limit per participant will be 3 minutes.
• 2 participants will speak on the above mentioned topic while 1 participant will present charts, transparencies, presentations, etc.

Senior Programming (1 team, 2 participants)

• Classes 11, 12
• Language medium will be Turbo C++
• 2 programmes based on arithmetic and logic and one based on graphic will be given to each team.
• Time allotted to each team will be 1hr. 30 min.

Story Writing (1 team, 2 participants)

• Classes 6, 7, 8
• Topic will be given on the spot.
• Time allotted to each team will be 1 hr.

Web Presentation (1 team, 2 participants)

• Classes 10, 11, 12
• Topic – Online Banking
• Participants will have to bring a prepared website in a CD/Floppy
• Judges may ask the participants questions regarding the website.

Software Display (1 team, 2 participants)

• Classes 11, 12
• Participants are required to prepare a ready-to-use version of the software.
• Medium of language allowed is either C++ or VB.
• Explanation of the software to the judges will be marked.
• Following hardware and OS will be available:

The Web Research Centre is also commonly known as the ‘eGurucool Lab’. This is a notice for people who use the services of the eGurucool Lab under the Exun banner.

Concerning Digex

Digex members have now localized on the computer known as ‘iMac’ and all their digital image processing work will be done on that computer. However, Ms. Sarika has mentioned that Digex members are only allowed to work in the computer laboratory for the first two periods. I kindly request Exun members not to disturb the Digex members during that time period, and utilize the functionality of the myriad other computers available in the laboratory for their work. I will leave all else information on an ambiguous basis.

About the eGurucool Lab

First of all, I would like you to recognize the meaning of the word ‘laboratory’. According to Google, it is “a workplace for the conduct of scientific research”. So, if you think your work comes under the above description, you are allowed to conduct it in the lab. In addition to this, the work should be related to Exun in some respect. For any other laboratory work, you must take written permission from a teacher. Again, I ask you to apply your mind and figure out which activities are not allowed in the lab; be prepared to get chucked out if you are seen ‘bunking’.

About emotional attachment with the iMac

I have seen many Exun members express some kind of attachment with the iMac (including a certain pride factor in using it); I would discourage such feelings, as it’s important to note that the iMac is only a computer. As far as I can tell, most Exun activities do not require the extra functionality available on a Mac. So, please be rational about this. Those who find this paragraph absurd – kindly ignore it.

Competitions

There is a competition at Ahlcon Public School on the 29th and 30th of September and another at DPS Mathura Road in mid-October. Tomorrow, I will attempt, from school, to post information regarding the two events. Do comment on whether you would attend a competition in the middle of the exams or not.

–Karan

This post would never have gone up had it not been for certain incorrect corrections our beloved president made in his edited version of Mr. Manas Gautam’s post on ‘super-members‘.

They (the corrections) are, as follows:

Super Members Needed.

Just a proposal:

We should recruit students of Class VI, who have potential, as Exun members. We can then train them in programming, quizzing or web designing, etc., so that, by the time they are in 8th, they will be like super members – and we need good members to carry on Exun’s legacy. So, do comment on this post.

Manas

P.S.: This idea is being used by DPS VK for their quizzing team which took up 2 students from Class IV and by the time they were in 6th (this year), they were very, very good quizzers.

The explanations are as under:

1. Misplaced ‘Just’: Considering the presence of the colon immediately after the word ‘proposal’, the ‘just’ is superfluous and may be omitted. If one wishes to do away with the colon (which would be ideal), one may precede the ‘just’ with ‘This is’, and replace the colon with a full-stop.
2. Combiner mismatch: This is a hard one to catch when one uses the term ‘etc.’. It must be understood that placing an ‘or’ after ‘quizzing’ causes the statement to become ‘quizzing or web designing and others’, which is meaningless and grossly incorrect.
3. The comma after ‘so that’ is superfluous, and the statement is perfectly correct without it.
4. Comma required before and after ‘like’.
5. Misplaced ‘and’: You probably meant ‘as’.
6. DPS VK: D.P.S. V.K. It may be noted that the last ’.’ also serves as a terminator.
7. Quizzing Team: It should be ‘quizzing team,’.
8. Why is the ‘up’ there anyway?

I would like to point out to my beloved and most revered president that there is no such thing as perfect grammar. I suspect that there may be some errors in this post also, and for them, I sincerely apologize (the commas are perfectly arranged in this statement, try speaking it out). But, I would also like to remind His Excellency, the shorter president, that he should not go about correcting others, if he can’t be correct himself.

I apologize for any feathers that I may have ruffled.

Yours sincerely,

Nisheeth Sharma.

(Sr. Programmer)