Contraptions

This year, Shaastra is going big and so is Contraptions. There will be two rounds. Paticipants are required to submit an abstract for the preliminary elimination round and the teams selected for the hands-on round at Shaastra will be informed shortly thereafter.

Participants from Hyderabad and Chennai:

Get ready Hyderabad and Chennai, we are coming to your home! If you are from a college in these two cities, visit Shaastra Sparsh. Note that for participants from these two cities entry to Shaastra is only through Sparsh.

• All the participating teams of Shaastra 2008 must submit a detailed abstract of their contraption describing the steps, the energy conversions involved in their contraption before 15th September(one per team).
• Selected teams will be informed before 20th September.
• Participants should have minimum of 20 steps.
• Maximum of 6 members in a team are allowed.
• All participants are requested to bring 6 copies of the properly printed write-ups of their contraption clearly mentioning no of steps, and no of energy conversions during the contraption event at Sparsh-2008
• The contraption must be safe to the satisfaction of the judges and coordinators.
• A space of 8ft X 8ft will be provided to each team.
• Only two trials are allowed. No point deduction for any step in 2nd trial.
• However, if the person takes the 2nd trial then the AVERAGE of the two is taken.
• Maximum of THREE interventions allowed in any trial.
• Participants are allowed to skip maximum of two steps only after intervention in any trial.
• No alteration in contraption of any kind is allowed at any point of time.
• Some bonus points are kept for innovation and shall be decided by Judge and coordinators.
• Judge's decision shall be final and binding to all.
• Failing to start the contraption when asked to by the coordinators could lead to disqualification of the team for that trial.
• Both final steps should be completely mechanical.
• Height of projection point of ball should not exceed 15cms from ground.contraptions@shaastra.org
• The organizers will provide keyboard and T.T. ball at the time of competition.
• Please do not hesitate to direct any kind of query regarding the problem statement or the rules of the event at contraptions@shaastra.org . This will ensure that there will not be any cribs on the day of the event.

• What do I have to bring? What will the organizers provide?
  Following items will be made available at venue:
  • 220 volts A.C. supply
  • Extension cords
• How can we get more information on Contraption event?
    Google! And have a look at the samples given below.
• What should we detail in the abstract?
    It should contain how you are going to perform explaining each and every step, total no of steps, no of energy conversions. You can make sketches, Flowcharts to explain any step.
• What is a parallel contraption?
    Initiating two or more contraptions from a single step and merging them at some point of time before the final objective is completed is a parallel contraption. Suppose there is a seesaw. On one end there is a burning candle with an aluminium strip on the other end. When the see-saw action occurs, suppose the candle burns a thread and the weight attached to it falls down and simultaneously on the other end the aluminium strip activates the a sound detector circuit. At this point, we have successfully initiated a parallel contraption. Now, if the sound of the weight falling down is picked up by the sound detector circuit and the contraption proceeds on this end, we have successfully clubbed the two parallel contraption.

This is the problem statement for Shaastra 2008. For the Sparsh problem statement, click here.

Type GJIITM on a computer keyboard and as parallel contraption participants are required to throw one T.T. ball to pass through a horizontal ring of diameter 15cm, kept at horizontal distance of 1.5m from projection point and at a height of 1m from the ground.

• All letters in GJIITM should appear in sequence, if they are not in sequence, for every pair the team will lose 10 points.
• For every additional alphabet, other than the alphabets present in "GJIITM", 10 points will be deducted.
• For every letter in the correct sequence the team will be get +10 points, e.g. "GJIIT" then team will score 50 points.
• If a particular letter is written more than 5 times consecutively then final step will not be considered in the final scoring. There will be no deduction for that.
• For completing both full text GJIITM and passing the ball through the ring team will be awarded a bonus of 350 points
• If only ball target is completed with incomplete text written, the team will be awarded 50 points for the ring target and for text writing above rules will be applicable.
• If ring target is incomplete and text target is completed then team will be awarded 200 points.
• All steps does not carry equal weightage- Sound (10 pts), Magnetic (10 pts), Light (10 pts), Electrical or Electronic (10 pts), Mechanical (9 pts), Chemical (8 pts). Points are given till the contraption stops.
• 40 points will be awarded for having parallel contraption i.e. Initiating two contraptions in between from a single step and simultaneously going on but that should merge in some point of time before final objective is completed.
• There should be minimum of 15 steps in parallel contraption.
• For each intervention 5 marks will be deducted.

A - Total number of steps involving sound, magnetic, light, electronic or electrical, vibration till the contraption stops.
B - Total number of steps involving mechanical energy till the contraption stops.
C- Total number of steps involving chemical energy till the contraption stops.
D - Number of parallel contraptions originating from the same step till the contraption stops excluding the parallel contraption required by the problem statement.
E - Number of energy conversions till the contraption stops.
F- Number of interventions in the trial.
G - Points obtained in the final step as calculated from the problem statement.
I - Points for innovation and aesthetics.
The following formula shall be used to calculate the total score Z:
Z= 10*A + 9*B + 8*C + D*50 + E*10 – F*10 + G + I

contraptions@shaastra.org