Chakravyuh (Open Quiz at Mindspark 2007) - Report

Date: 6 October, 2007
Venue: College of Engineering, Pune

Open Quiz - "Chakravyuh"
Elims set by: Abhishek Nagaraj
Finals set by: Abhishek Nagaraj, Aditya Gadre and Aniket Khasgiwale
Finals conducted by: Aditya Gadre and Aniket Khasgiwale
Theme: General

Quiz Final Results
(~60 seamless IR with round reversal)
cutoff: 25.5/35
1st: Avinash Mudaliar and Harikrishnan Menon (A) 115
2nd: Meghashyam Shirodkar and Samrat Sengupta (F) 110
3rd: Uddata Baruah and S. Balakrishnan (D) 85
4th: Sumant Srivathsan and Ravi Venkatesh (B) 80
5th: Salil Bijur and Maitreyi Gupta (C) 65
6th: A.P. Alagarsamy and Prasann Potdar (E) 60

Notes

• Chakravyuh 2007, the annual COEP quiz had already happened in April. This year, COEP organised "Mindspark", a technical fest with contributions from all departments, meant to be an annual event. The general open quiz, for the sake of legacy and permanency, was called Chakravyuh. That way the year 2007 had two Chakravyuhs and Chakravyuh henceforth is going to be a part of Mindspark.
• Elims which were set by Abhishek were very workable and conformed to the "my mom knows of the answer" kind. A high scoring elims and appreciated by most. There was a sizeable participation for an open quiz in a college and lots stayed back to enjoy the finals.
• Finals turned out to be a tight affair. Team A (Avinash and Harikrishnan) team F (Samrat and Meghashyam) led right from the start with teams B and C making good starts. Team D (Udatta and Balakrishnan) made a silent comeback midway by cracking some good questions to end up at the third spot.
• The first time Aditya (the silent one) and Aniket (the singing one) conducted an open quiz of this level representing the new generation of COEP.
• Lots of very good questions, interesting picture connects and visuals. A few questions were the kind of i've-seen-something-like-this-one-somewhere-before. But QMs cant be blamed since the honest effort was apparent.
• Like in any other quiz, this one had its share of inconsistencies in point distribution and disputes concerning accuracy of answers. The heat that was generated only added to the excitement of a very close finish.
• Cribs: There were many questions where more than answer is required and the policy of allotting points kept changing. A uniform approach though difficult, is desirable. Secondly, the flash presentation seemed to have some usability issues making it cycle through all questions from the start causing slight irritation to others.

Please leave comments on this post if you have any suggestions, criticisms, corrections to offer.