My college, MANIT Bhopal, had its tech fest- Technosearch and cultural fest- Maffick from 12th to 16th March 2010. It was a 5 day mega fest with events round the clock which left me exhausted everyday. I participated in a few events with my teammates- Shilpesh Mishra and Nishant Maloo. Here's an account of the happenings of Technosearch and Maffick 2010 from my perspective

Day 1 : 12th March

Got up early in the morning to do some volunteering work. Had to volunteer for Deal Street and Das Kapital so set up the tables and chairs and prepared the venue for the event. Deal Street was a virtual stock market and Das Kapital was an even that had to do with managing a company for two days. In the morning, I volunteered in the Das Kapital elims and checked the answer papers. After the elims, I volunteered for a while in Deal Street before heading for the first round of Exuberance, a CS-IT event. It wasn't really a hardcore coding event and had more to do with logic in the first round. After the first round of Exuberance, I headed to the informal desk which was like 2nd home during the 5 days of the fest. Then it was time for the 2nd round of Exuberance which was nice and interesting. It had coding in a new defined pseudo code type language with memory restrictions. Overall, Exuberance was a nice event but we failed to get a podium finish in it. By the time the 2nd round of Exuberance was over, most of the technosearch events for day 1 had ended and then I headed to the football ground for the group dance competition. The group dance ended around 10 pm after which I headed to Modern Skool. Modern Skool, as described, was meant to have games like lucky 7, pen fight, poker, blackjack, UNO. It turned out that everyone was interested just in Poker and other card games and modern skool was transformed into a proper casino. Modern Skool was a very popular event and due to the immense popularity, the organizers, who happen to be my friends were constantly falling short of cards, chips and volunteers to serve as dealers/bankers. So I ended up dealing/volunteering on a table till around 2 am.

Day 2 : 13th March

Got up a little late after a tiring day 1. Had an event (War of Codes) in the afternoon, so spent time at the informal desk before the first round of War of Codes. War of Codes was purely a coding event. The first round was interesting and based on our choice, teams were being alloted a set of 10 questions out of 18 questions with balanced number of coding and debugging problems. We made it to the top 5 of War of Codes and the final round started at 4:30 at the CC. The final round was split into 2 parts- one was a proper coding+debugging round on PCs and other was a round based on the Conway's game of life that was supposed to be solved on paper. We did very well in the first part and messed up the second part so missed a podium position by a very narrow margin. The finals of War of Codes ended around 9pm as a result of which I missed the Kumar Vishwas night proNITe but no regrets as War of Codes was fun and having a chat with The Cruel Joker was also nice. After that, it was time to head to Modern Skool for some dealing which I did till around 2am.

Day 3 : 14th March

Woke up a bit late again, still feeling tired but knew I had a very empty day ahead with almost nothing to do in the day time. Spent the whole day either at the informal desk or watching other events happen. Events that day included Rube contraption (setup time), CSI (the flagship event of Technosearch) , Stone Age, Treasure hunt and Chaotic times. These were the ones I attended either partially or completely. After a pretty free day, I had a very busy night to worry about. Nocturnal, the overnight coding event was scheduled for 11pm that night. Before that, I attended the rock band competition at the football ground. Nocturnal was an event I had been looking forward to. The event timings were 11pm to 6 am and we were supposed to solve just 2-3 problems. That meant we were in for some lengthy programs and had ample time to think. I reached there at 11pm to find a large number of people already started with the questions. The questions were really nice and challenging and that night at the CC was pure fun

Night @ the CC. Nocturnal - The overnight coding event

My teammates did a good job by waking me up every time I got a bit drowsy. My team managed to complete two programs till 7:30 am and we were confident about a podium finish. We ended up getting the 2nd position and got a cash prize of Rs2000 . This part should actually be in Day 4 because it was day 4 by the time nocturnal ended. Switching to day 4 now.

Day 4 : 15th March

Day 4 started with Shilpesh dropping me to my hostel. I was tired after the overnight event but had other stuff to do that day so decided to take just a short nap. As soon as I reached my room, I just laid down on my bed without bothering to change or take off my shoes. The next thing I remember, it was 4:30pm when I woke up . I slept through all Technosearch events on the day and headed straight to the football ground for the Laser show and fashion show. After the fashion show, next up was, you guessed it right, Modern Skool. Modern Skool was getting bigger everyday. It was the most popular event. We used to fall short of chips every single day. I managed a table completely on day 4 which was the last day for Modern Skool. I went back to the hostel after the end of Modern Skool, one of the most successful events of Maffick 2010.

Day 5 : 16th March

Day 5 had almost nothing to offer. Maffick and Technosearch were originally scheduled to be from 12th to 15th March and the fest was extended by another day as the Kailash Kher night had been postponed by one day. Went straight to the informal desk on that day. The result for War of Codes and Nocturnal were declared on that day. Final rounds of a few events were being conducted in the SAC. After that, it was time for the prize distribution, my favorite part of the fest, specially if I get a prize. The prize distribution marked the end of technosearch and then it was time to hit the football ground for the Kailasa night. Finally the 5 day long fest had ended and I had dinner @ ICH that day.

Overall, it was 5 days of pure fun without a single dull moment. Personally, I'm satisfied with everything the way it was done. Though a week late, I eventually did get my Rs 2000 cash prize . This post is getting pretty long, one of the longest on my blog. This took me a couple of sittings to finish writing it. This was technosearch and Maffick from my perspective. That's all folks!.