FOUR STROKES (Part 3)

3^rd year - Power

The most important year of mechanical engineering was upon us, but most of us were just glad that we did not have to use the drafter or board anymore. Through DMD, caliculating the efficiency of Chynne drives and Belt drives using a Caliculator became the order of the day. The promises of mobile phone funded parties were sustained in this semester as well, and we also learnt how important it is to appreciate the humor of professor just for the sake of reaching that magic number of 75/100. MIC class began with the entire board being scribbled on within 10 minutes, but any subsequent doubt was met with the sheepish, smiling, “I don’t know sir”.  Mugging: Theory and Practice (MTP) made many people reconsider their MBA aspirations, and saw the revival of the I-don’t-agree kurta gang protests. The famous adha-credit Metro lab made us slog it out, while its better half gave us an insight into the ‘help files’.

5^th semester saw the advent of ‘non-compulsary’ electives. Mechatronics, chosen by the daring few saw them on their toes, staying back after the semester to finish their mini projects. GOD continued with TM which made it the most popular elective though the regular attendees (read girls and MK) were assured a perfect 10. IPDP by SMK, brought about technological advances in teaching methods which was highly appreciated by all. HPC taught us everything to do with valves and [intelligible gibberish], while also giving most of us the opportunity to catch up on [more intelligible gibberish]. The almost non-existent course on energy made us turn our backs to the board. Our very own green engineers thought of innovative methods of saving the planet by reducing paper wastage and graduated to MK_notes.jpg.

The 6^th semester began with the duel about the choice of instructors for two out-of-phase subjects. The end result was a compromise with both sections being given a share of sweet and sour. MDV made us sweat it out with the search for the elusive reason to DO than compiling 101 reasons not to. The industry-institute interactions in the class increased to such an extent that chocolate sellers and typists were repeatedly flushed out. The moody moodle ran on Chinese Standard Time, leaving those following the NITK Standard time unable to submit the results of their hard labour. The deep blue mountain setting with often very bad type-setting gave us colossal insights into the world of heat transfer, which we would normally shift to cooler sections of the main building to enjoy rates of higher heat transfer and lower information transfer. The Economics program saw many build budding careers in finance, as GShah topped the class, much to the surprise of MK.

A completely new course was introduced so as to avoid the already infamous fluid subjects which saw maximum registrations and minimum attendance. The hard core fluid subjects made us learn what ‘potentially’ fluids could do. Coding in CFD gave us an opportunity to admire the department at night, in the august company of our instructor and our MaTtak seniors. The Controls course instructor had no control on the class frequency and thus students had to be content with a high damping ratio and faulty feedback loops. He continued his association with us by sitting through the self-taught course on Automobiles. MEMS class taught us to see a whole new dimension of ‘size zeroes’ but the course was easy sailing thanks to the seniors inputs. This year’s elections saw another big mass Chaitu replace the former big mass Basu as the CR. The proud BAJA boys brought accolades to the college by winning the Virtual BAJA competition and the Best Cost Award at SAE BAJA 2010. Also, Spanish Boy Chit continued to stream FIFA World Cup 2010 live from SA through summer. Chinta started putting seeds in EU as a precursor to his conquest. A trip to Kaiga was undertaken to gauge the importance of Nuclear Energy, which was rather a good holiday for all of us on a river-side resort. The class also had the only trip in its four year history, to Sita Falls.