PROJECT EXHIBITION WOES (TECXPEDITION 2006)
Well actually the way we got involved in the project exhibition was quite of an adventure in itself. When the news of the project exhibition first reached our project we gladly asked our Big Guy Amit to register our project for it (1 Lakh Prize money made us glad – turned out to be 35K – Tip: never assume always be clear). But this was about a month or two before the exhibition actually started and over time most of us totally forgot about it. Then we realized that our project deadlines were also coming up so we wouldn’t be competing..
However the list of short listed projects came up a week before the exhibition and we created a blunder. Our project registration was done twice.. Once by Big Guy Amit and the other time by Super Big Guy Omkar, therefore we weren’t allowed to step down and we also hadn’t prepared at all, thinking all this time that we had cancelled our registration. So then, there we were.. Six days to go and a project presentation to be done totally from scratch. (Cheh Din – Prize Money IN :D)
It is Friday, the 8th of September .. we come office for a normal day and get to know by afternoon that our project registration has not been cancelled. So we will be competing but none of us, except team leaders and above, have an idea about how to present our project. Actually the problem is that the project is very very huge. Even an introduction session of a new team member can take hours, even days. But at the exhibition no one is going to have more than 15 minutes for the project (provided we manage to keep his/her interest which again is doubtful). So we decide to call upon a team meeting at around 6 in the evening. (Project deadlines are being worked on till that time). In the meeting it is decided that we will meet on Saturday for say an hour to finalize on ideas. And everyone is supposed to come up with ideas. By that time Kunal is assigned the work of getting two small size motors (Tillu Motors) to show real-time simulation of our project. Everyone leaves for home to get some ideas to office tomorrow.
Here dawns Saturday, and instead of snuggling up in the bed on a weekend, we get ready to go to office at 11. And I’m the 4th person to reach office, and that too at 12 J. Still we hang on there as the remaining members of the team turn up one by one and I feel glad that I’m not the only person whose weekend has been ruined .. hehe .. Ok so once all the dignitaries have arrived we start with the ideas sharing session. Clearly we can see that no-one has thought about any ideas, but we still manage to come up with some ideas on the spot. And finally we decide that we’ll be having a PowerPoint Slideshow running on a PC, some 5-6 posters which will show the basic overview and the User-Interface of our system and finally a flash presentation to show the real-time data flow of the system. However now comes the real question as to who will be in-charge of the actual presentation delivery, and in a flash of a second we have fingers flying here and there!
Options –
Kunal – The most eligible candidate cause of his background of Bihari education where he can convince anyone that he’s a Masters in every field you can think of and haven’t ever heard of (kidnapping & extortion included).
KP – Looking at the size and mass on this one (6’3’’ – 100Kg).. it is highly probably that even a newbie will get a total understanding of the system without any doubts.
Devi – With her dazzling moves and seductive looks people are definitely going to have a hard time NOT agreeing to whatever she tells them.
Nishikant – The deep understanding of Bollywood and Soap Operas that he possesses is much of an asset on his resume. If he loses any link in the narration chain he can revert to those assets bundled with PJ’s to put the person in front wondering as to - lets just agree to what he says and get the hell out of here.
Rewa – Her uncanny resemblance to our German clients makes her a worthy candidate for the presentation lobby. And plus we were planning to have KP in the doubt clearing section. So you have a doubt.. she orders KP to clear the query and then wham-bham-dhishoom and doubt cleared. :D
Kshitij – His low-waist jeans will be more than just a distraction for people coming on to the stalls for them to understand the project, and then raise any queries if any.
Sagar – Jai Maharashtra – No further questions J
Amey – He is the oldest member of our team so he must not have any problems explaining the project to anyone. And plus his current hair-do would remind people of the baal-ki-dukaan from the Amir Khan's Coke Ads some years back. So someone asks him "What will happen if one of your tank's temprature rises?" and he'll reply "How is that possible ? Kyunki ye Thanda hi to hai :D "
ME – No comments :)
Me: Ekdum .. ladkiyon ko presentation ki responsibility dete hai ..
KP: Yes ..i agree as well ..
Someone else:
Me: I have no problems with giving the presentation. Actually I would like people to know the effort we’ve put into the project B-).
Kunal: De dete hai .. presentation to main bachpan se de raha hun :D
Rest of the Guys: haan kyun nahi .. de dete hai ..
Kunal & KP (The Art Couple): With the setup of the hardware along with motors and stuff.
Devi, Rewa & Kshitij : Putting up Posters around the project stall.
Sagar, Amey & Nishikant : Managing the project stall, setting it up and deciding the layout.
Me: Getting a flash presentation ready.
It’s a beautiful Sunday and whoever thought we would waste our Sunday and do our assigned work better needs to get sober now.
Ok, Monday the dreaded day has arrived and everyone is supposed to get something meaningful to office. But as expected noone has anything worth taking credit for..
- the hardware setup team’s carpenter ditched them :D
- Poster team needs posters ready to set them up (which as expected are not ready)
- Stall Management team doesn’t have a stall yet
- I managed to learn over the weekend that flash is not as easy as people tell you.
But the major shock was our project leader Omkar called in sick. Now we are struck by the truth that this won’t be one of all the times when Omkar gets us out of situations, so we are on our own.
Tuesday is here, Omkar is not coming today as well and to make the matters worse Supermodel Devi calls in sick. Wow .. we’re in for a ride now.
Carpenter has still not come. Posters still not ready. Stall not yet assigned and I’ve learnt how to spell F-L-A-S-H. Sounds like fun!!!
Wednesday arrives and now Big Guy cum PM Amit wakes up and tells we must get our project presentation ready. That is what we call dead-line conscious. He takes up the task of making posters. Kunal’s carpenter feels some pity for the art couple and decides to show up at 5 in the evening. Devi gets the thermocol supports for the posters and some black chart papers for the poster background. The stall is assigned and the stall management team gets ready to start working. And finally I realize how to get started with flash. By evening the poster soft-copies are ready which we are going to send for printing (Meanwhile all other teams have everything ready and also have ads set up everywhere to tell people about how wonderful their project is.. we still haven’t realized that setting up ads outside the stall as well will be a nice idea).
It’s 9 pm in the office .. our entire team is still there .. but seems that we have managed to finish off work. The table for the tank gauge (An instrument used for measuring various parameters from a tank like level and temperature – that is what our project is about) is ready.. the motors are in place and all seems set at the hardware setup side. The poster backgrounds are ready as black chart paper has been put up neatly on the thermocol pieces and are looking cool. And the flash presentation is ready .. looks of more like a powerpoint presentation but we managed get some spice into it by KP’s idea to take pictures of actual hardware by a cell phone camera against a black background and then using these pictures as images in the presentation to show how the data flows thru our system .. and trust me it looks awesome. So we leave for home to come back to office tomorrow at 9 in the morning.
Today is the first day of the event, we are supposed to get the stall up and running by 9 and only half the team manages to reach office at that time. We reach office at 9:15 and realize that even the posters are not ready. Kunal, KP, Sagar and Omkar have managed to get the stall up and running .. And we have managed to reach office :D .. Then Amit goes to get the posters .. and we go to see our stall .. most of it looks in place and then someone gets a brilliant idea no one has thought of, to set up ads inviting people to visit our stall(Sense the sarcasm, please). So Kshitij, Devi, Rewa and me go downstairs to collect ideas for the ads, while the remaining people are getting ready for the presentation.
Post-Lunch we manage to get ads ready and then we have to set them up at all critical locations, that is the time we realize that we are out of transparent tape and don’t have decent scissors as well. So guess what?? We use brown duct tape cut with a crooked cutter to stick those ads (ugh! Who does that these days?) onto the walls, lifts, all places which aren’t already used by our competitors.. and trust me .. it looks ugly. For around an hour we are doing rides through the company lifts and sometimes we even manage to get lost as to which floor we are on currently. Those walls are till-date stained with our brown duct tape victory marks. But the job is still half done; we have to set up a big poster at the entrance to tell people where our project is located. And as expected we have one more problem, our ads aren’t looking good on the black chart paper we have. So Kshitij and me get an idea .. we rip off a spanking cool blue chart paper off the glass windows(set up by the house-keeping dept), put up to block the sunlight coming in. Even the chart paper must have never thought that it would be a part of the epic award winning team (The next day it was ripped off again – but it had got it’s moment of glory).
So all is set-up.. Our posters have arrived.. we stick them onto the black chart paper and it looks neat. Our work is finally complete and Kunal, KP and Nishikant have done a good job to hold the fort of presentation and impress people by telling about the project. We finally manage to visit the stall in the evening, it had been good till then but it is tomorrow we are worried about cause tomorrow will be the day the judges will be coming. We’ve got quite decent feedback till then and we pack-up our stall at around 8 and leave for home.
The last day has a lot in store for us. Today people have become more self-confident due to the presentations given by them yesterday and some have also managed to come up with various styles and punch lines to make their presentation jazzier.
Like whenever a person visiting the project looks like he’s getting bored listening to KP’s voice and over-done gestures, KP diverts their attention to the hardware box kept nearby. The Hardware is merrily blinking with red, orange and yellow LED’s and KP gets the punch-line in..
“The beauty of this system is blah blah blah blah … ”..
Use some more over-done sentences..
Again raise his voice and say “The beauty of this system is … ”..
The word “beauty” surely gets attention of most people..
He also manages to get a person so brain-washed that there is a feedback saying - “Nice project, the beauty of the system was that ……”. Argggggggghhhhhhhh!!!!
But the show-stealer like always is Mr. Kunal. I mean, whatever he does, he’ll get himself involved so much that he’ll forget where he is and what he is doing. Apparently his explanation of the project went something like this ..
Our hardware tells the sensor sitting beside the tank that “BOSS, GIVE ME DATA” (Most of us sitting beside actually fell off our seats, but the deep desire to watch his physical actions keeps us glued). Physically he is portraying the command with the upper part of the body showing that he is pulling something and the lower part (*parental guidance recommended*) of the body depicting a thrust. None of us gets what he is trying to illustrate until Omkar suggests that maybe it is some bi-directional protocol.
This night is much of an event in itself, but I’ll stick to the relevant part. Half of us have managed to reach on time. And the night is rolling, to start with, prizes are given out for paper presentations and then comes our category. And the prize for best project is announced and it is US. Kshitij and me start screaming with joy, but only our project lead Omkar is called onto the stage, probably the organizers don’t want Kunal on the stage telling our CEO that “BOSS, GIVE ME THE PRIZE MONEY” (accompanied with a thrust).
Anyways Omkar comes back with the prize, all of us go and flock him and he gives us the prize, which Devi safely keeps into her purse (Something which she can tell her grand-children about “Once I had 35K in my purse, and with the kind of salary we had that time, that was much more than a privilege”). We are so happy that we fail to realize that the best project is given to three projects and the prize money of 1 lakh is split between the three projects giving each one of them 35K. But that doesn’t matter much anymore. We have won, our efforts recognized.. not just the team with the presentation but the entire team with the development till-date as well .. our ex-team members are also involved in the celebration and we have a great time that evening.
This was how the Tecxpedition saga came to an end. It has been one hell of a joy-ride and we never play to lose .. :D .. The nice times are over; the feedback forms are kept away safely in my drawer as wonderful memoirs of that experience. And time and time again I go through them and laugh as I see feedbacks like “I liked the project especially the GUI”, which someone from the GUI team gracefully implanted. Then one more which tells about the beauty of the system, and trust me had I been someone visiting the stall I would have actually drawn Kunal in his stance onto the paper highlighting the protocol “BOSS, GIVE ME DATA”.
