Shaastra, the IIT Madras annual technical festival, will be held from September 29 to the October 3, 2010. The festival will include a variety of competitions, lectures and workshops and will attract over 30,000 people, battling out for the prize money which runs into lakhs.
Apart from the regular events, Shaastra is conducting ‘Imagineering Impact' in the honour of Wright Brothers who invented the aircraft and Thomas Edison and Graham Bell who invented the electric bulb and the telephone. The event will showcase engineering projects that will showcase Imagineering ability of the students of IIT Madras. The notable ones include QuadRotor, Paper Flapper, Robo Snake .
Shaastra nights - a showcase of technical extravaganza, RC show - a stunt show by radio controlled cars and Air Show - the largest for the model planes in the country will be some of the prominent events. In addition TechX, a platform showcasing technical innovations right from industries and universities till the rural grass root innovators will be part of the festival. Other events on the of creating impact would include the Toy repair Bash- a massive repair campaign for techies where faulty toys are got from warehouses around the city and the repaired ones would be distributed to underprivileged kids with the help of NGOs; Going Vernacular - an attempt to create knowledge base in various vernaculars and Learn from Toys - a challenge to create toys with least cost while explaining a science phenomenon, to be distributed among schools in Chennai.
Shaastra will continue to host a myriad of events that continue to be the crowd-pullers. These events include Industry Defined Problems, Robotics, Da Vinci Machine, Junkyard Wars, Hackfest, Paper presentation and the Shaastra quizzes - Shaastra Main Quiz, How Things Work and the Shaastra Online quiz. Shaastra Unwind is expected to be a major hit through the events like Cube Open, affiliated with the World Cubing Association, Puzzle championship and Science fiction writing.
