#1: ThinkQuest Live

Early this year, I stumbled upon ThinkQuest. The ThinkQuest International Competition 2011 was open. There were 2 months to deadline. I decided to participate anyway. I approached 3 of my friends to join me on the project and they did, readily.




After a few days of discussions and disagreements, we finally chose the loss of India's cultural identity as our topic. Wasn't an easy ride but we managed to complete our entry and submit it. The submission itself was quite an achievement for us. However, we felt that we could have done a better job (I still feel that) and didn't expect to win. Especially since the previous years' winners had created such beautiful websites! So the results came in as a surprise to us. I was overwhelmed when I saw that we had won the 2nd place! I called up my team members and they were all in a pleasant state of shock.

Winners have been announced here: Winners! and our project is titled "Reviving Our Roots"

Here's the best part: the prizes!!! 2nd place winners are awarded an all expenses paid trip to the 4-day long ThinkQuest Live event in San Francisco. I know, AWESOME \(^_^)/ . The trip includes workshops, excursions, sight-seeing and an elaborate, red carpet awards ceremony (excited!!!). Winners also receive a laptop each. Previous years winners seem to have received MACs, I hope we do too. I really look forward to meeting the other winners and all the awesome people at ThinkQuest.

Yayy!!!!

Comments

  1. Ashish MahaurAugust 22, 2011

    Very firstly, Congratulations to Sushi and the entire "Reviving Our Roots" team.

    Creating such an awesome website in just 2 months is something really really incredible! If you ask my team, we started up from August till last night of the deadline...So...by looking up with this way, your team have done extremely fantastic job!

    And i see that all the team members are filled up with talents.
    And yaar hat's off to your writing and thinking skills! I am very much impressed, seriously.

    "Lagta he ab to regular subscriber banna pdega :D"

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What We Do in the Name of God: An Account of My Visit to SriKalahasti Temple

Image
Yesterday, I visited an ancient, renowned temple called SriKalahasti with my family ( 8 people ranging from age 5 to 6).My account of this visit is from the perspective of an agnostic who is hesitant to travel to another state just for pooja and darshan at a temple. SriKalahasti Temple As soon as we stepped outside the bubble of our tourist car, we were surrounded by several unkempt, hungry pilgrims. They all began speaking at once. They had traveled from far off places and had no money. One of them requested for money to buy food. My uncle opened his wallet and handed over a few rupee notes and coins. That was enough to attract another bunch of saffron clad pilgrims. We managed to evade them and enter the temple premises. The inner premise of SriKalahasti was constructed back in the 5th century A.D. whereas the extended area was built in the 12th century. It is only expected that the structure would be imposing and awe-inspiring. We were told that the puja was not to beg...
Read more

Wedded to What?

Image
Occasionally, I hear my neighbors or parents discussing marriage prospects for young people among their relatives. Several filters are applicable in this search for a spouse. The first and tacit rule is that the groom must belong to the same community as the bride and that horoscopes must match. The next preliminary qualification is a degree in engineering and a well paying job at a multinational company. Any application that falls short of these criteria do not make the cut to round two. In the second round of the great Indian arranged marriage, the bride's family indulges in circumlocution as they ask "Does the boy own a home or apartment?". The answer to this maybe a deal maker or breaker. The idea that a life partner must own a house raise a doubt about the very crux of arranged marriages. Do we wed a person or the setting (home, car, security, city of residence) that he or she offers? Does our true loyalty lie with this life-long partner or with our indi...
Read more

What the Chandogya Upanishad Says About Education

My yoga center was giving away some books it no longer needed. One of these books was the Chandogya Upanishad with English translation and commentary by a Swami Lokeshwarananda. My knowledge of the Upanishads until then was limited to Amar Chitra Katha (comic book versions of Indian stories) and two verses that I had learnt in my yoga class. I took this book out of curiosity. What are the Upanishads about, after all? The Upanishads are deeply philosophical and I will reserve my novice's comments for later. Here, I present some ideas which modern education could use more of.  1. Education is pointless without self-knowledge.  Self-knowledge is the overarching point of this Upanishad. In one story, a man sends his son Svetaketu to study the Vedas. Svetaketu returns after twelve years as an accomplished scholar. The father notices his son's pride and tells him that all scholarship is worthless without self-knowledge and then describes self-knowledge to his son in many ...
Read more