Fest Registrations For Freshmen.

Okay! There are many many openings for the freshmen with the fests approaching. There are probably millions of things to do and you are wondering where to start for. The answer is HERE. I don't know about others but I'll speak for myself. Following are the openings and dates, so let me know if you're in.

Journalists for the sports newsletter Half-Time:
If you're wondering what Half-Time is, its the sports newsletter which covers all events happening in Enthusia (Now hope you know what that is..It's not Euthanasia, Enthusia ok?) So we need prolific or not so prolific writers, like me, who cover the events and submit reports.

Half Times are going to be rolling on the following dates:
8th,12th,14th,15th,18th,19th,20th,21st,22nd and the 25th of January.
Help with photocopying and distribution will also be appreciated a lot.
And none, absolutely none of your efforts will go in vain, because they will be acknowledged by a shiny certificate.

Those interested please mail me a write up of approximately 500 words on anything you wish. Maybe your impressions of the college, how you enjoyed your first semester, your views on the upcoming fests. Anything except your favorite fruit or animal.

Leave your number and name somewhere.
gauravgada [at] gmail [dot] com

Organizers for the RCMO2010 : Rubik's Cube Mumbai Open 2010.
Openings for at least 30 freshmen. This is one BIG event in Technovanza and as before, certificates will be given to all.

Dates : February 6th and 7th.
Timings : Almost all day.

So if you'll want to bunk some lectures and have sone fun mail me your name and number : gauravgada [at] gmail [dot] com

Moreover you'll can contact me on orkut, facebook, twitter or mail me your queries. (Yes, we are too spoilt for choice today) Register yourself as soon as you can for that shiny certificate.

Pratibimb Follows Swadeshi.

Have I been complaining a lot? Maybe, but complaints are the precursor to reform. If we don't complain, we end up being sub-standard.

So, I heard, our cultural festival 'Pratibimb', is not allowing bands to play engliss songs. Brilliant! Today how proud would Gandhiji be, that we have successfully implemented swadesi.
The bands who might be in a pickle as to what to play, I've charted out a special playlist that might comply with the competition rules.

Songs:
1 - Dhagala laagli gad : Who does not love this number? Gives a tough fight to Rawk On!!
2 - Dum maaro dum.
3 - Pappu Can't Dance Sala
4 - Jumma Chumma De De
5 - Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam

PS - Click on links to watch high quality youtube videos of the songs. Might be helpful if you want to cover them.

Got only 5 off the top of my head, as and when I remember more songs, I'll post them here. Back to the point, no engliss songs. What?!
Mood I allows English songs, Manzar allows English songs, too liberal, are they?
After much thinking, I still haven't understood the POV of this rule-setter. Does the rule-setter think doing this will make the fest more popular? Does he think Raj Thackeray will be a happier man? Or does he just want to please the great Mahatma himself?

Hopefully there will be reforms, and we may get to play some engliss songs.
Views and opinions in the comments section please.

Got my end-sems coming up, so got quite a lot on my plate. Won't be blogging for a month or so. Till later. Wish me luck.

Wake up, stupid me.

Ok, it's been a while since I've posted. Mid-sems are over, things are chilled out. Some friends are attending i-Rock, but sadly I don't do gigs anymore, so I'm not going. Saving up on some dough, so I rather sit back home and headbang.

I just came back from Wake Up Sid, and it was a decent movie, this coming from a staunch bollywood hater. That's because I could relate to it. Punctuality sucks. :) The picture on the left was clicked in the Multiplex.

Some typical bollywood cliches/flaws in the movie:

1. Konkana Sen writes the article ' New Girl in the City' in English, but reads it in hindi. :S

2. They keep calling Mumbai 'Bombay', but surprisingly, the magazine they work for is called 'Mumbai Beats'. No wonder Raj Thackeray had to exert some tough love.

Oh, BTW I still haven't figured out why some professors say:

1 While dictating, 'next line'. (Come on. Are we dumb enough to keep writing on the same line even though its filled)

Quite a random post, but I have nothing to write. Till later.

Dude, MTEE!

Apparently China's not the only one.

MTEE labs are filled with boredom. Sitting on the stools and tables, waiting for the M.Tech dude to start 'teaching', 60 people jumping on each others back to hear him. The only fun we have is through wires. Not to mention, the 'slightly' drunk lab assistant who never fails to moral police us and provide useful insight.

So one day, we started winding the wires into solenoids and toroids. Later, some antisocial elements were adding them to other peoples backsides.

A few unlucky ones were victimized*. Only one could be bought to footage for reasons not known. Sadly due to this whole expose, people will be more cautious next time. But it remains certain that the antisocial elements will find other means of lollygagging by then.

*I do not take responsibility for the trauma suffered by the victims, and the only way I was involved with the antisocial elements was in shooting this video for archival purposes.

Chindhi Class Tests.

Abbe chaap! - Guy refers to someone from whom I have to copy, so that he can copy from me after I'm done.

But the fuckup at times is, principled nerds and backstabbers do not want to show you. Then you are in deep shit. Unless of course, you studied the night before. Something that never happens till the week before the end sems.

So, referring to experiences from my class :

Ganesh : Extremely principled which is at times extremely annoying too. His work ethic is 'Do not show, Do not see'. But if someday, he does crush his ethic, huge amounts of red ink will be saved, which will eventually help India dye manafacturers Inc.

Nikhil S: Do not rely on this guy. He pretends as if he wants to help you, but he is actually double crossing you All he does is shows you half the page. Which is not at all useful. If you do not believe me ask Vaibhav. Moreover, his handwriting is a pain to decrypt.

Aditya : I will not show you. _|_

Mihir : Very helpful. He does actually show you what you want. And his handwriting is good too.

Vaibhav : Very helpful. But again, who studies. So he is more of a data passer, than a data creater.

Nikhil C: We both know how much we've helped each other. :)

Someday, lessons will be learnt, and I/people like me will force themselves to study. That will be the day mankind solves all problems.
Damn! That reminds me, a deadly test on transformers awaits me day after. I better get to work. Bai baye.

Fun in Mu-lund.

After changing my base to Mulund, I thought, life would be hell. The suburb has a phallic name. I wouldn't know shit about transport. I wouldn't have my Vashi friends to chill out. I would miss NMSA. I would miss Yummy dosas, which were obviously very yummy. I would have to hunt for a good guitar tutor. I would miss so much.

But things have been completely contrary to that. It's been a lot of fun. Except that my buildings name is gay. The society is called 'City Of Joy'. WTF. And buildings inside it are named 'Sparkle', 'Celebration', 'Hurrah', 'Thrill', 'Happiness'. Soon they might come up with 'Gay' and I won't be surprised.

Found some fun people in the building. The Brofos (Clif and Carl), Priyanka (MBBS), Prashant (Tripper Anna), Aishwarya (MBBS-Or whatever Carl says it stands for), Vanita. (BDS business baron) These guys made the transition a joyride. It's been absolute pleasure (D. Jain might be getting ideas for another buulding name) to hang out with these people, who constitute Katta Gang II. As far as Katta Gang I is concerned, I better not describe their intricacies.

Travelling was initially a pain. The station being very close to my house was a big advantage as travelling was only limited to Home-College-Home. But soon, as I went to get stationaries, supplies, the road started becoming familiar and now it's not much of a pain travelling. Autos here are cheap. The autowalas have some kind of a hate club for our building and 2 out of 3 would refuse to drop us here. At times you have to be sly and con them into dropping you home.

I did find an awesome guitar sir too. Another surprise was thrown my way, when Ankit Bhaiyya shifted here. It's been fun going to Cypress and smoking cigarettes in the breeze after coffee. Though bhaiyya at times, mentions the 400 saloons which he has been to. I guess he has a fetish for saloons. And every saloon we pass by he expresses a desire to have his hair cut from there. Not to mention a saloon near Ruia, where apparently a hottie cuts your hair (Damn, I would love that).

As far as NMSA is concerned, Mulund has the shittiest swimming pool and badminton courts. Kalidas sucks. It's closed most of the time. You cannot have a monthly, but only a yearly access. I've wasted the money which I've paid for the yearly swimming as the club is open at odd timings and the guys want holidays at the drop of a hat. So I've been a lazy bum here, which no physical activity. All I can do is wait for the squash court which is coming up in my building.

Since Yummy dosas is no more, I've found Mahesh Pav Bhaji (EPIC buttery pav bhaji!) near the station and Masala Wada Pav (Epic) outside Kalidas.

Still I miss Vashi. I miss those mammoth malls. I miss the load shedding. I miss the Agnel Blvd. Santosh/Goli wada pav. Gupta. The sector 17 blvd. Mini seashore. All the mothafuckas up there. Everything thats constituted 13 years of my life.

Making The First Robot - Tutorial

Lets hope this is comprehensive enough. Read right through the end before starting.

To start with, dump 1500/- in your bag and head to Laminton Road. Very close to Grant Road station if you don't already know. Visha is a famous shop there from where you can buy your supplies. No harm if you do it from other shops too, as long as you get what you need.

List of Items to be bought :

For testing needs:
Multimeter - Price varies with quality - 85 to 325

For soldering needs:
25 Watt Soldering Iron - Soldron is a good one - 120 to 150
Pre fluxed solder wire - 30
De-soldering wick - 8

For wiring needs:
Wire stripper/cutter - 10 to 50
Multi-strand cable - Buy around 4-5 meters, you'll need it now or later
Single strand wire - You get a set of 5 for 3 Rs. - Buy 2 or 3 of those.

Circuitry components:
L293D motor driver - 70
5 volt regulator (L7805CV)
Bread board ( You can use a PCB as well. )
DB-25 male connector.

Power:
Buy a 12 V- 5 A power eliminator (They are called car cassette battery eliminators) Buy one which has points at the back where you can directly insert the stripped wires. The one I bought was had National written on its box.

Other items:
12V - 300 RPM DC motors with 6 mm shaft - 2 nos - 125 each - Try and go for the ones which have wires already attached to them.
Wheels - Buy 2 non slippage wheels, which get screwed onto the shaft of the motor.
2 normal wheels - optional - shaft diameter 6 mm for all.


Miscellaneous Items:
Chassis - Optional, but recommended. I bought it. If it suits you, you can use some box or wooden plank.
Parallel port monitoring software - Parmon - My anti-virus gave me an alert when I tried downloading, but don't worry, it's a clean file.

A very helpful page I found on pricing , shop phone numbers and addresses.
Take me there.

Pre-requisites:

Knowledge About Soldering
Some helpful videos :
Video 1
Video 2
Help yourself with other videos and tutorials.

Knowledge About the LPT1 port
Some helpful links :
Machine Grid - Read this through the very end - Very useful - Contains almost all the information needed.

Knowledge About the L293D motor driver
L293D datasheet - Use the download link for Texas Instruments.

Knowledge About the Bread board. :)
Tutorial

Knowledge About the 5V regulator
L7805CV datasheet

That was a LOT of knowledge. Trust me.

Start of action:

Start on the Bread board.
Shove the L293D and the 5V regulator on the breadboard at a convenient spot.
Also shove in the positive and ground wires from the power eliminator to the top and bottom buses of the bread board.

Refer to this image.

Make the following connections for now:
Positive of 12 V power eliminator - Pin 8,16 of L293D and Input of 5 V regulator.
Ground of 12 V power eliminator - Pin 4,5,12,13 of L293D and ground of 5 V regulator.
Output of 5V regulator - Pin 1,9 of L293D.
Respective motors - Pins 3,6 and 11,14 of L293D (output).

( - denotes make connections to)

Now the interesting part - soldering.
Refer to this image:

Take the multi-strand wire and separate the same 5 wires at both ends. Solder 4 of them to any 4 pins from 2 to 9 i.e D0 to D7
(I soldered them to 2,3,5 and 6. 2,3 for 1 motor and 5,6 for the other)
Solder the fifth wire to any pin from 18 to 25 (ground pins).

Now connect the pins intended for one motor (in my case pins 2,3 of DB-25) to pins 2,7 of L293D and the other set to pins 10,15 of L293D.
Connect the 5th wire to the ground of the power eliminator.

After doing all this, your connections are over.
Attach the motor to the chassis, the wheels to the motor etc.

Now open Parmon and by sending appropriate signals to the LPT pins, you should see your motors moving. If they don't, you've screwed up. Don't forget to turn on the power eliminator. :)
Taking the corresponding hex number and using the outportb function, you can make the bot move by using your keyboard after writing a code.
Sadly my OS does not support outportb so I was unable to control the bot using the keyboard, but it gave perfect results in Parmon.

Thanks and References:
Seniors from SRA (very helpful), Daftery (iSuk :) ), Vaibhav (Baruns brother), Hardware shops at Lamington, Maa, Baju wale uncle-aunty, Bhagwan etc. :P

Notes:
Take care while soldering. Don't burn yourself.
Keep your hands dry and clean, especially if you are going to take apple breaks like me.
Don't electrocute yourself.
Don't hold me responsible for your screw-ups.
Thanks www.machinegrid.com for all the images and raw material.
Inserting the multi-strand wires into the bread board was difficult, so I soldered them onto the single strand wires and then inserted them.

For any further help :

First go through this. Thanks S-Gupta. :)

Then,
If you are from my college:
Join the SRA google group from the SRA homepage.
Post your problem as a thread, after reading the previous threads and going through what I/S-Gupta asked for.
You will surely be helped.

If you are from other colleges:
Find people in your college to deal with your shit. :)

I named my robot Rudiment. Watch it move here.
Hope you found this helpful. I shall now depart.