diff --git a/_posts/2018-08-25-summer-diaries-michigan.md b/_posts/2018-08-25-summer-diaries-michigan.md
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----
-layout: post
-title: "Summer Diaries: University of Michigan"
-image: lubana1.jpg
-tags: [wona]
-author: "Ekdeep Singh Lubana"
-excerpt: "I spent my summers working as a visiting scholar (the appropriate term that should be preferred over the standard lingo—Research intern) in the Embedded Systems group at University of Michigan."
-category: summer2018
----
-
-I spent my summers working as a visiting scholar (the appropriate term that should be preferred over the standard lingo—Research intern) in the Embedded Systems group at University of Michigan. My project encompassed working on the brink of software- and hardware-design in order to reduce energy consumption of a camera.
-
-With a GPA of 7.05, I certainly did not have high expectations with any of the conventional means of bagging an intern. However, a decent research background that had resulted in significant output kept me hopeful. Thus, I started mailing professors around the last week of August.
-
-Luckily, I did not have to squander a lot of time mailing and faculty-hunting. While my first two applications went dark (I still haven’t received a reply from them *quietly sobs in denial*), the third application got converted into a teleconferencing interview. As I mentioned before, I believe, and my advisor has affirmed this multiple times, that relevant research experience in the field of imaging systems is what bagged me the interview. After that, I spent a week brushing up my computer architecture and digital design basics. The interview went fine and my advisor, based on my previous experience, told me to come up with ideas on a biological principle named “fovea”.
-
-Off I went and figured how energy consumption in machine vision systems can be significantly optimized if a fovea-like sampling routine—i.e., multi-resolution sampling of analog image signal—is used. Essentially, this results in tight integration of the software algorithms with hardware routines that exist, but are not exploited. This proposition was well received and I started working in remote capacity. Here, I would like to emphasize that most faculties are apprehensive of research interns because of limited time windows. My explorations in remote capacity helped me convince my advisor to have me at U. Mich. as a winter-cum-summer intern. The “wintern” work resulted in 75% energy reduction of conventional machine vision systems and a publication on the same was accepted to IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design. The paper will be presented at CODES+ISSS (International conference on co-design of hardware/software and system synthesis), 2018—a part of Embedded Systems Week, that is set to be held in Italy (Yay!).
-
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-
-## Work Culture
-Located in Ann Arbor, University of Michigan is in a relatively remote region that has more folk-culture vibe than a trendy city like New York. That suited me really well. Further, there were no time restrictions and we weren’t even expected to show up—at all. Thus, I reckon I spent my entire time meandering in the library, that had amazing rooms for private study, or CS lounge (or as it is called—the ”foo bar”) which had an amazing ambience. I love this minimalist nature of computer science that renders extravagant resources unneeded. Departments and library were open 24x7 and were connected to my home via the Michigan M-bus route. Thus, I would reach campus by 8 AM and wander around till 12-2 AM, mostly.
-
-We had research group meetings every fourth Monday and reading group discussions every Thursday, wherein the leading participant would propose a paper on the field of Embedded Machine Learning and the same would be discussed in the meeting. I met my advisor twice a week. While meeting your advisor twice a week is horrendously exhausting, it helps accelerate the overall project. I expected myself to show some progress every meeting and that helped produce significant output. I completed a project in the winter, had a paper accepted, and spent my summers working on really interesting aspects of Embedded Machine Learning and Neuroscience, wherein the focus was to come up with ideas inspired by the latter and make the former efficient. This has led to a novel data compression algorithm based on compressive sensing.
-
-{: style="width:90%;height:auto"}
-
-## Ann Arbor
-Not a lot happens in Ann Arbor. Alas, being a foodie, I loved the minuscule vegetarian serving places in Downtown. Being a vegetarian is a bummer, take my word for it. I would recommend trying the Indian eateries like Madras Masala to satiate your desires for Indian food.
-
-The Ann Arbor summer festival and art festival were fun and a must visit. There’s a record store that sells vinyl records and CDs of the oldest artists you can think of. I visited the place quite often. Bookstores in Ann Arbor are really interesting, for if you visit on first or third Saturdays, you can find Bruce Conforth playing folk music (Heads up—Bruce Conforth is the first curator of rock and roll hall of fame and has worked with the likes of B. B. King, U2, The Kinks, etc.).
-
-{: style="width:90%;height:auto"}
-
-## Takeaways
-In a nutshell, I would recommend to try your hands at research internships if you either have relevant experience or high GPA to bag one via conventional programs. I believe the former is more sensible, though. That said, avoid spamming professors.
-
-I could recommend two methodologies for mailing:
-(a) Pick a university using QS or some other organization’s ranking system. Narrow down on faculties with relevant interests. Visit their Google Scholar or dblp profiles and go through the recent research work. If the interests align, draft a mail explaining how your interests match their research directions. Herein, boast.
-(b) If you are deep into your field, reading papers is a routine habit. Off of the recent year conferences, if you find interesting research papers, you can explore the authors’ previous work and draft a mail, thereafter. This methodology helped me bag another internship for Winter, 2019.
diff --git a/_posts/2018-10-09-conversation-with-mr-rc-bhargava.md b/_posts/2018-10-09-conversation-with-mr-rc-bhargava.md
index 300a576..398b7f2 100644
--- a/_posts/2018-10-09-conversation-with-mr-rc-bhargava.md
+++ b/_posts/2018-10-09-conversation-with-mr-rc-bhargava.md
@@ -4,10 +4,10 @@ title: "In Conversation with Mr. R C Bhargava"
tags: [wona, column]
category: verbatim
image: suzuki_amped.jpg
-excerpt: "Mr. R C Bhargava is currently chairman of Maruti Suzuki. A graduate of Allahabad University, he topped the 1956 batch of the IAS, and served in the J&K cadre."
+excerpt: "Mr. R C Bhargava is currently chairman of Maruti Suzuki. A graduate of Allahabad University, he topped the 1956 batch of the IAS, and served in the Uttar Pradesh cadre."
---
-_Mr. R C Bhargava is currently chairman of Maruti Suzuki. A graduate of Allahabad University, he topped the 1956 batch of the IAS, and served in the J&K cadre. He later joined Maruti in its nascency as its third employee, and subsequently led the company to its position as the number one automobile company in India. He has been conferred with prestigious civilian awards by both the Indian and Japanese governments. He was invited as Chief Guest at the Convocation '18, where Watch Out had the honour of interviewing him. Here are some excerpts from the interview._
+_Mr. R C Bhargava is currently chairman of Maruti Suzuki. A graduate of Allahabad University, he topped the 1956 batch of the IAS, and served in the Uttar Pradesh cadre. He later joined Maruti in its nascency as its third employee, and subsequently led the company to its position as the number one automobile company in India. He has been conferred with prestigious civilian awards by both the Indian and Japanese governments. He was invited as Chief Guest at the Convocation '18, where Watch Out had the honour of interviewing him. Here are some excerpts from the interview._
**You were an IAS officer who later switched to Maruti in its formative years. This is an unconventional career path, people generally don’t do this.**
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ Not only in the automobile industry, Japan also became a highly competitive nati
It has become a culture because the people felt the need to become competitive since Japan was totally ruined after the war. Japanese people have a great amount of self-respect. They are very patriotic. They commit ‘harakiri’ which is a ritual in which they kill themselves if they seem to lose faith. After the war, the Japanese actually lost faith and had no other way to regain it. The only way to become competitive again was through economic activities. They decided that if they become the most powerful economy, then they could regain faith which is actually what happened. Japan is a highly respected country not because of their military might, but their economic might. If India wants to grow faster, we’ve got to stop distrusting each other and start to work as a team.
-**So we wanted to ask you about research in general in so at least in the institute's we've seen including the IITs research is improving a lot in the last decade or so, but yet research remains to be this kind of thing that academicians pursuing in their academia, so it's kind of unpacked and the idea of Industry oriented research, the way it happened in the US or in Europe in countries. That is kind of lacking though.**
+**Research in Indian institutes, including the IITs, has been improving a lot in the last decade or so, but yet there remains this perception that research is this thing that academicians pursue in their ivory towers, you know, that it's often unrelated to required real world or commercial applications. The idea of industry-oriented research, the way it happens in the US or in European countries is kind of lacking?**
You want to do research because you want to develop new and better products and technologies, which give customers a better experience. If you do that, then you expect that your company will grow and become more profitable.
@@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ These changes are almost unbelievable. One now wonders, how did one manage In th
**On a closing note, any general advice you would have for students here, especially the graduating students who you will be addressing?**
-I think you people here are the elite of India's intelligentsia. by you people I mean in the IITs, and IIMs. You can't leave the task of India's development only to the government. Over many years people in India have built up this attitude. That `ye kaam to sarkaar hai`. Even if it's something to be cleaned ~ `Sarkar karegi`, if there is something not working ~ `Sarkar mein kharaabi hai`.
+I think you people here are the elite of India's intelligentsia. by you people I mean in the IITs, and IIMs. You can't leave the task of India's development only to the government. Over many years people in India have built up this attitude. That _ye kaam to sarkaar hai_. Even if it's something to be cleaned ~ _Sarkar karegi_, if there is something not working ~ _Sarkar mein kharaabi hai._
It can’t work that way. If you want this country to become a better country for yourself- and you guys have got 70 years to go- Who will do it for you?
diff --git a/_posts/2018-10-19-tinkering-lab.md b/_posts/2018-10-19-tinkering-lab.md
new file mode 100644
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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Rethink! The Tinkering Lab, IIT Roorkee"
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: verbatim
+image: rethink1.png
+excerpt: "The Tinkering Lab, also known as the “no curriculum lab”, was inaugurated in March 2016 with the vision to be at the forefront of technological advancements in IIT Roorkee."
+---
+
+The Tinkering Lab, also known as the “no curriculum lab”, was inaugurated in March 2016 with the vision to be at the forefront of technological advancements in IIT Roorkee. To know more about how the last two years have been, we spoke to Prof. Inderdeep Singh, who is the Faculty Lab coordinator, and Anant Vashistha, the Secretary of the newly formed Students’ Body of Tinkering Lab.
+
+**After coming into the college, everyone gets briefed about all sorts of labs present in the campus, but the Tinkering lab often remains a mystery. So, to start off, it would be great if you could give us some insight into the tinkering lab.**
+
+**Anant:** The Tinkering lab was set up in mid-2016 to serve as a platform to generate innovative ideas. The lab is equipped with several advanced technologies to foster learning and creation. Several types of machinery, tools and facilities have been introduced since then. Currently, we are working on a few new technologies. One is the use of rapid prototyping, which we believe will give birth to new ideas and products.
+All we want is to make the lab equipped enough for young thinkers and innovators to come, tinker and innovate.
+
+**Most students are unaware of lab timings and its facilities. Continuing on the same note, when can a student enter and perform projects in the lab?**
+
+**Anant:** The lab is operational from 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM during the weekdays. We realise that the timing of the lab is inconvenient for the IITR junta, so we are trying hard for an extended timing, mostly to make the lab operational during the weekends. But as of now, any student can visit and perform projects during the above-mentioned hours.
+
+**Prof. Inderdeep:** To open the lab 24X7 has been our primary goal, and with the formation of the Students' Body, this goal is almost achieved. It is quite difficult for us to put in staff members for 24 hours to manage the working of the lab, thus we needed the support of the students. We have planned to hand over the keys to a students' volunteer team, who would make sure that the lab stays functional even during the off hours (when staff isn’t available).
+
+**What, if any, technological advancements have taken place in the lab?**
+
+**Prof. Inderdeep:** The core idea behind starting up such a facility was to give a complementary benefit to what the students were already learning in the classes. At IIT Roorkee, we have a highly structured way of teaching; with a fixed number of tutorials and practicals. At times there are some topics that pique the interest of the students, and one may stumble upon an idea which isn’t a part of the academic curriculum. When you are self-driven towards working on such an idea and building up a product of your own, you would need a place that would provide you with the means to do so and The Tinkering Lab is one such hub at IIT Roorkee.
+
+Campus groups such as Team Robocon, Model and Robotics Section, IITR Motorsports, etc. are fairly active users of the lab. One can gauge the utility of the lab from the fact that when IIT Roorkee secured the second position in the Inter IIT Technical Meet, the Student Technical Council acknowledged the support that was offered by the Tinkering Lab. These are a few contributions of the lab in terms of provision of facilities to the campus groups. We may have not launched a product which can be branded as a product of IIT Roorkee, but the foundation for the same has already been laid. In the due course of time, we may be able to come up with some market-ready products with the help of the TIDES business incubator.
+
+We also flagged off the ‘Design Innovation Centre’ recently, with the aim to turn ideas into reality, and create products which could be used by everyone. Apart from this, The Tinkering Lab was chosen as the model centre for the ‘Smart India Hackathon’ because of the facilities available here.
+
+**What role does the Tinkering Lab play in the life of UG/PG students? How has the lab supported the student community of the institute?**
+
+**Prof. Inderdeep:** Recently, we have observed many PG/PhD students using the facilities of the Tinkering lab to create products or perform tests and experiments besides their regular research. In other words, they are beginning to think out of the box, trying to develop a certain thought process which would enable them to build products of their own.
+
+The Tinkering Lab is always available to the Students Technical Council. We have supported their projects, be it personal or group, by providing them with the means and tools available in the lab. The lab acts as a wall for the students to rely on, to pursue and build on their ideas.
+
+**Anant:** As of now, more than 60 projects have been supported, and there are around 6 ongoing projects in the lab. These projects include personal projects, projects conducted under the guidance of a professor and Technical Section group projects.
+
+**What are the facilities accessible to the campus junta? Is there any restriction imposed on their use?**
+
+**Anant:** There isn’t any restriction on the use of tools and machines in the lab. If someone is interested to work on their product idea, the lab will provide all the tools that they may require to perform their project.
+The lab is equipped with numerous machines and hand-tools. 3D Printers, 3D Scanners, CNC Machine, VMC Machine, are some of the commonly used machines by the students. Other than that, the lab has various computational and electronic facilities, chemicals and a huge workspace.
+
+**There were grievances posted by the student’s community on the SAC IITR Discussion Forum on Facebook about the ill-working of the various types of machinery available in the lab. Why is the maintenance of these facilities poor?**
+
+**Prof. Inderdeep:** Up till now, there has been a non-uniform workload distribution on the machines present in the lab. We have a chemical room and a tools room, but they have merely been an exhibition throughout the year. Rapid Prototyping 3D Printing machines are used extensively by almost everyone, thereby leaving less maintenance time.
+
+We have 18 Rapid Prototyping 3D printing machine out of which a few have turned non-functional due to its extensive use. The reason for the machines remaining non-functional is that these machines have been imported, therefore the functional parts that get damaged need to be imported as well and importing such parts take around 15-20 days. In order to tackle the problem of faulty machines, where the students may suffer, we have scheduled the ongoing projects in such a way that the students would always find one idle functional machine out of the available 18. In the Tinkering Lab, we’ve never failed to provide the facilities to anyone who has asked.
+
+Purchasing the components of the faulty machines in the market isn’t possible, so whenever we face such a situation we make sure to order the component in a stack so that if some other machine faces the same problem, we wouldn’t have to wait for a long time to get the component replaced. The only downside of ordering components in a stack is the longer time it takes to reach us.
+
+Apart from these, the financial model of the Tinkering Lab is not yet fully matured. If we have a complete model of money flow and appropriate resources, then we can easily plan the activities down the year. We are in a process of creating a financial model which would address to all of these issues.
+
+**A new Students' Body has been formed for The Tinkering lab. How will this body be organised, and what are their responsibilities and functions in the lab?**
+
+**Prof. Inderdeep:** The organisational structure of the Tinkering lab comprises a Faculty Coordinator, an Assistant Workshop Superintendent, two Project Associates and the Students' Body. The main aim of the body is to act as a link between the student community and the administration of the Tinkering lab. All the problems faced by the students are first addressed to the students’ body before being taken to the administration. They basically are our eyes and ears, staying active on social media to answer the queries of the students and also present in the lab to assist the students in the machine work of the labs. They give feedback to the lab administration about the usability of the equipment present along with the account of the difficulties faced by every visitor.
+
+The Students' Body is also responsible to disseminate the information about the labs to the students of the campus. One of the major responsibilities of the body is to know the demands of the students. There might be a group of students who need a new set of machines in the lab to further fine-tune their ideas; in such cases, the Students' Body has to step in and let us know about the requirements of the students.
+
+**As you have stated that the student participation in the tinkering lab is pretty low; what outreach initiative has the Students' Body taken?**
+
+**Anant:** Higher student participation has been our primary objective since the inception of the Students' Body. For the same, intro talks and lab visits for all the students have been conducted and a healthy participation was witnessed as well. Moreover, we’ve also conducted a 5 Day workshop (Open to all) on 3D Printing, 3D Scanning, Laser Etching and Wood Milling. We are increasing our team strength for proper execution and organisation for the various events being conducted by the lab. To display everything available in the lab, we wish to fully digitise the Tinkering lab. The first step towards digitisation is the induction of a website, which we will launch soon. We plan to showcase the operation of every machine on our YouTube Channel. LinkedIn and Facebook promotions remain our priority. Other than that, we have planned to conduct Guest lectures, from both academicians and industry experts, organise semesterly competitions and workshops. We would also try to participate in national and international level competitions.
+
+**Running this place must be a very difficult job, and you would need to have a strong team to pull it through. What sort of challenges are you currently facing? Moreover, what changes have been made after the appointment of the new Students' Body?**
+
+**Anant:** The major challenge that the students here face is the time restriction. Lack of student participation is another issue. The maintenance of machines is also a huge concern.
+After the appointment of the Students' Body in November last year, we have been working on policies to improve the lab. We have started right from the scratch, scheduling events, activities, competitions, keeping our primary objective of more student participation on our minds. We have already supported more than 60 projects with very few people within the restricted time slot and with the increase in participation, we believe the tinkering lab can do wonders with the number of facilities available.
+
+**You’ve mentioned about launching your website. Could you elaborate on the functions and facilities of the website?**
+
+**Anant:** Launching a website will be our first step towards digitisation of the lab. It will contain information on all the machines, tools and facilities available in the lab. Few functions like Digital Inventory column to check the availability of inventory items, Student Portal where students can put up project request, submit reports, etc, Feedback form, Query management system, Idea sharing forum, have already been incorporated into the website. To promote industrial collaboration, we have planned to create a portal for industry experts and companies. All the completed and ongoing projects would be displayed on the website. Anyone who finds interest in any of the projects is welcome to collaborate through the Idea sharing forum.
+We believe that we will be able to launch a fully functional website before the end of this semester, fostering outreach and transparency.
+
+**What are your expectation from the Tinkering Lab and the future plans to expand the functioning and facilities inside the lab?**
+
+**Prof. Inderdeep:** I believe that there is huge scope in product development in India these days. In my experience, I’ve seen that students create ‘something’ during their B. Tech. years, but that ‘something’ never gets to the real market. I believe with the help of Tides Business Incubator and the Design Innovation Centre (DIC), the students would be able to take their product to the real market. Such projects would be funded by the DIC so that the students are able to make working prototypes and field test the same. Also, the link between the conceptualization of ideas and making it a market product has been missing till now, and this link needs to be bridged with the help of the Tinkering Lab, the DIC and the TIDES.
+My future vision is to make at least 5 different products in the next 2 years, developed in IIT Roorkee, fabricated in the lab, available to the market. I am confident that the students of IIT Roorkee are highly capable of doing so.
+
+**Are there any plans for making the lab self-sustainable? If so, what are the initiatives that you’ve planned to make this happen?**
+
+**Anant:** Making the lab self-sustainable is one of our objectives as well. Although we aren’t rushing with it, we would push for industrial collaboration. LinkedIn connections with industry experts and collaboration with groups like CIG will be our first step. Before that, we have several other challenges that we have to work on. A website and an active LinkedIn profile are prerequisites in making the lab self-sustainable.
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