Department of ECE put up a good show in collaboration with Renesas, a Japanese microprocessor company in an embedded design contest. Participants were given a microprocessor and asked to come up with a prototype which would use the microprocessor.
I spent a fruitful one hour visiting the various demos. Wow! I was zapped by the creativity of the students. The first one by Ganesh and his friends took up voiced translators of words expressed by the aurally and orally challenged people. The simple commands, greetings, requests etc. were transmitted via sensors in the tips of the gloves and in case they wanted to replace them with other expressions, how to dump the previous entries and enter the new ones. There, they used 'TalkIt', a free software to assist them in delivery of their proposal. And then it struck me that the software could be used to generate listening tasks. What do they call it? Happy serendipity???
There was a proposal for the Unique Identification Number project, a motor vehicle that can sense obstacles on the road, a unique safety system for vehicles incorporating password to deny unwelcome access to vehicle, to use light dimmers, water temperature sensors, load sensors, etc. and another defence vehicle that used very high frequency to sense enemy vehicles, to detect metal sheathed bodies, use cameras to access elctronic readings and a whole lot more of facilities, a PDS mechanism to record proper distribution of rationed goods, an electronic billing software for EB connections (this was very good)...As usual, I am left speechless by the potential for new ideas.
The prize distribution was in the evening and I am guilty of not having stayed for it.

The butterfly exodus was there to be seen today and was the topic at many water cooler meetings and walk a talks. Hundreds, not the thousands about two years back, of black butterflies with a bluish pattern on their black wings flew past us on all roads at GCE, brushed past us, not finding us fragrant enough and were to be seen hovering in the air stream above the teak flowers in full bloom. They also fluttered over those tiny yellow flowers in the low undergrowth. A few yellow ones, looking like the satiny yellow petals of a rose and one or two greenish white ones, one dull brown one were also noticed.

How beautiful they make the campus look...like angels on high, especially when the winter sun shines on them in rays. Beautiful.

Professor Malayalamoorthi had his viva voce today...he joins the band of academics from GCE who have persevered through the years to reach this pinnacle. Our kudos to him.