Students play the part with lan

HYDERABAD: Turning the idiom ‘keeping it short and simple’ on its head, participants at the IIT-Hyderabad fest, Elan-2012 designed a Rube Goldberg contraption which would apply toothpaste to a toothbrush in 15 steps at the least.Seven teams took up the challenge and the winning team got it right by doing it in 17 steps. The more complicated the contraption, the better points it gets.Students of TKR college of Engineering and Technology managed the feat and emerged as the winners. This and more marked day one of the IIT fest with students betting their chips on a game of Poker, Rummy, Russian Roulette and more in the casino atmosphere.There were others who preferred virtual action and participated in the play station game qualifiers event, Dota. Close to 1500 students showed up for the fest and the ‘techy’ events which included the Robo Epic drew large crowds for participation and in the form of audience.Of the 20 teams which participated in the competition which included making the bots attacking a target attached to the rivals, Muffakham Jah College of Engineering and Technology bagged the first prize while the host institute stood second.The evening concluded with a stand-up act by Nitin Gupta aka Rivaldo, a chemical engineer from IIT-Bombay turned comedian.He had the students in splits with his interpretation of the popular nursery rhyme ‘Johnny-Johnny’. For day two, creating wealth out of waste seems to be the motto for ‘Project X 1.0’ where the creativity of the participants will be challenged. The automobile quiz and electronic bloopers for the circuit-whiz kids is on the cards on Saturday as is another campaign against smoking