Category: Personal Reflections

Exun (Experts Unlimited), the computer club of DPS R K Puram organised its annual computer symposium Exun 2006 on 11th and 12th November 2006. It was a big clash with Modem 2006, but we made it, hopping back and forth from venue to venue.

On 11th, we’d spoken to Exun pres Gursartaj and took our Senior Quiz prelims earlier. It was a rush job, as we had to go back to Modem, so we just did it quick, enough to qualify and went. Read about Modem in my earlier post.

It was a rush back to Exun for the Crossword, and we’d qualified (although at a level lower than expected for Senior Quiz too). The rush was because we HAD TO bite into the Dominos pizzas, which was for lunch. We did that, and then Prannoy had to go for the Hardware Overclocking event, so I was all alone in the Crossword. I found it easy though, and completed the whole of it, except for two clues. Prannoy did come in at the end, but couldn’t crack those two. In the end, we qualified for the finals of the Crossword too, as the winners of the prelims. Much to the surprise of ex-Exuners conducting it.

At the end of day 1, it was an encouraging thing to know that DPS VK was leading the points tally with 42 points (the Answer). It put more pressure to perform next day too. The points came from Raj winning the Group Discussion, and Prannoy and Vivek coming runners up in Hard OC. We lost in Swat the Bug though.

Day 2 started off with the news of DPS VK qualifying in gaming. Crossword final was the first event of the day, and we did REALLY well. Apart from points, my answers impressed the judges enough to get me chocolates too, which Abhimanyu in the audience gobbled up later. Were it not for a -10 I got for the team by taking a risk and going for a question without a clue on the buzzer for extra points, we’d have won with more points. Prannoy strongly contends that I messed it up since a [quote] ‘a hot anchor (an ex-Exuner) came on stage’ [unquote] to conduct that round, and then again points out that I messed up the direct too in that round. Anyway, we won the Crossword event, and I loved it totally, since it’s all about figuring out, which I like, while many quizzes stray away into facts. It got us the most points in the overall tally too.

With celebratory pizzas for lunch (Abhimanyu had three, and was the first to the counter), we came back to the AVH to hear that we came third in Programming. After filling up with his tank with pizzas, garlic bread and coke, Abhimanyu was too lethargic I guess to win anything in gaming, and that’s what happened.

So it was our competitors Apeejay Noida catching up, and putting in great jeopardy the Exun trophy for us. Next was Junior Quiz, where our team came third. Frankly though, I was disappointed by their performance. I expected something better from people who’ve done well at an inter-DPS meet at the national level. JQ was fun though, especially the replays that we had to do on-screen to decide some of the buzzer round questions. Also jaw-dropping was the power of a Mac presentation.

Before the ultimate event, the Senior Quiz final (SQ), the points tally showed that Apeejay Noida was leading with 98, and we were at 91. It was all up to me, Prannoy and Vivek to do something in the SQ, and get Exun. We HAD TO finish above Apeejay Noida to win it. That pressure really freaks you out, and it really did to me.

SQ was totally vague (with Ishaan of DPS RKP ‘preferring to stay anonymous’ when everyone was introducing themselves), and teams on stage were mostly clueless as to what was going on. It thus spawned some funny answers. We maintained a position second to MIS, playing safe since our strategy was not about winning the SQ, but winning Exun. At one point though, we were devastated when Apeejay answered a question to take the lead over us. It REALLY put us under serious pressure, believe me. We immediately bounced back though with a few back-to-back answers and closed the gap with MIS too. In the end, MIS won, and we came runners up, with Apeejay third. But most importantly, we’d got crucial points which placed us at the top of the food chain at Exun. Vivek had been the saviour in SQ, like I’d been in Crossword, with a crucial opener in the beginning.

The prize distribution soon followed, with the words DPS VK coming frequently. I went up for, Crossword, then SQ. Our president of Code Warriors, Anshul, who couldn’t come to Exun, was listening to it on his cellphone, while we narrated. Then started the overall results, in reverse order, Modern School (since nobody from that school was their, the chief guest, from HP the sponsors of Exun, took it since he’d been a Modernite), then Apeejay as runners up.

Then came THE moment. DPS Vasant Kunj, rightful owners of the Exun 2006 trophy, were called on stage. Shouting, yelling, smiles and high fives all around, we lifted it up, Anshul shouting ‘Kevin’ (that’s Kevin Mitnick) over the phone. The team celebrated a bit, nah, lot, exchanging DVDs of Exun intro, Abhimanyu trying to ‘hijack’ a trophy to show at home.

We’d set out to win Modem 2006, with absolutely no thought about Exun. In fact, we almost thought we’d be routed. That didn’t happen. Thanks to one of the strongest performance ever from the Code Warriors, Exun 2006 saw the comeback of CW from the ashes.

There is room for improvement, we can do better. As for Exun, I’ll be back, next year…

The final day of Modem started off on a busy note for me, as I came running in from an Exun prelim (Exun deserves its own post, so read that later). To greet me (rather me and my quiz partner Prannoy) where Bombardo and rest of the troop.

The quiz started off really late. Our major contenders on stage Mothers International school and DPS Mathura Road, out of the 6 teams that had qualified. The others were Monfort, Apeejay (NOIDA) and Mount Carmel. The first direct was an easy one for me, and gave us a crucial boost as I’d doubled (double is like is a question is for 10 marks with no negatives and you double, then if you get it right +20 otherwise -10). In the same round though, MIS took a big lead on passed ones. Over the next few rounds, their lead increased while we tried to play catch up (at one point, we were 5th!). Disappointing was that our hardware guy Prannoy missed a few sitters.

Then came a round where everyone used up their challenge card, except us (a challenge is when you are asked a question and you ‘challenge’ another team to answer it, if they get it right, +40 otherwise -10 to that team). That was a round which saw a reduction in scores, but MIS still retained the lead. Our strategy in not using the challenge card when everyone else had was to save it for the last round, and use it to our advantage in final position. This was also the round where we messed up big time, where Prannoy, thinking he’d been challenged a second time, gave an answer out-of-turn, and it was picked up by another team.

With a bleak scenario, then came the savior question – on the origin of the Apache server. I gave a pretty spirited answer, arms flailing and we got it. It was a double, so it took us closer to the lead. Followed by a few passes, and we were back in business.

The last round was a rapid fire round, and I was disgusted that the fools conducting it had not told us the challenge card could not be used in that round. Anyway, the round was good, and in the end we ended up a close third, with MIS first and DPS MR second.

Analysing our performance, I’d say never to let Prannoy facing away, because he keeps thinking on his, and then gives a ‘mujhe bolne nahi diya’ after I give an answer. 😉

The other events like PodRadio didn’t go well. What disappointed the CW team the most was Abhimanyu’s loss in the gaming event (on an Xbox!). I knew Modem was going out of our hands, so when there was a clash with Exun we sent our junior team there. One guy did come back for the hardware event with Prannoy, but we didn’t get a position in that.

Overall, at Modem 2006 we came third, with Apeejay coming first and MIS second. We could have done better, if we had more podium finishes in other events too.

What made us angry though was the fact that we did not get any prizes for the events that we DID win. We’d gone in to a lot of trouble to go for Modem despite having Exun, that too because Modem President Aman Gupta had stated “…you know our prizes…” and they’ve a history of giving away good prizes. Not this year. Maybe the sponsors, Microsoft were stingy this year.

On a lighter note, the event was a nice one. We were shown the entries of PodRadio (a podcasting event), Movie Making and DJ Mix. Must applaud DPS MR for a tremendously funny podcast (and the only ones to understand the meaning of podcasting correctly). Movie clips were not that good, although the ones who came second had done well. DPS MR again played the goofy card by making a movie WHOLLY consisting of kissing scenes from ‘Friends’. The remixes from the DJ event were pathetic though, given they got a library of 180 songs to choose from for a five minute clip.

Microsoft showed us why it makes crappy software, aptly demonstrated by its head in India who came during the prize distribution ceremony. He had no idea what features his own software had, neither did his engineers, and he even accepted his daughter had found ‘new’ features of which apparently his staff had no clue. Shows why not to trust Microsoft. Also, he was under the illusion that Microsoft applications were used in the events, when actually most of them were done on open-source ones.

My pal Prannoy though was greatly disappointed about this being his last Modem (hopefully), since he won’t get to see [quote] ‘that ultra-hot and cute teacher’ [unquote] of Modern anymore. He took a detour while coming down from stage after getting his prize to speak to her too. So sad Prannoy… 😉