Mains’17 Memoirs: A Little Bid

Team Technothlon has built a reputation for bringing out new, creative and out of the box events for Technothlon Mains every year. After all, it is only fair given that the team that triumphs over the others in these events gets to go on a trip to NASA.

While in the previous years the events were mainly based on technology and engineering, but a bunch of sophomores from Team Technothlon ’17 decided to break the barrier. And so, ‘A Little Bid’ was born. As evident from the name, the event was all about bidding. It wasn’t as simple as it sounds however, as a lot of planning and street smartness was required to outsmart the other teams. Each commodity up for auction had its own set of pros and cons, with several things such as Maintenance costs, depreciation and revenue per year making life more complicated for the contestants. The students had to perform revenue calculations from the data over every commodity and their previous buys.

Let us find out more about what it took to successfully plan and execute “A Little Bid” from the creators Mitanshu, Abhishek, Anurag, Kuldeep, Ashish and Rajas (evidently, everyone in the team is not called using their first names!)

1. What is “A Little Bid” all about ?

A Little Bid was a one of its kind event that tested several aspects of the participants such as reasoning ability, mathematical skills, emotional stability, teamwork and ability to take instantaneous decisions. All participants were given virtual money, using which they had to auction for commodities. You not only had to be careful about the amount of money you’re investing, but also about when you’re investing it. An event rooted in real life, this taught the participants more than just math.

2. How did you get the idea about the event ?

Mitanshu was intent on making an event based on finance. Then the idea of conducting an auction in an inflated market hit him. Eventually we completely redesigned the rules of an auction to make it more logical and challenging. We introduced some real life financial concepts in our event so that the students gained something truly valuable from this event..

3. How did the event go? How did the students do?

The event in all went quite smoothly. The students were as amazing as we expected them to be and played the game with interest. Most of them were able to tackle the difficult problem statements and understand the concept of the game pretty quickly.

4. How did the students react?

After a couple of days of intense and tiring events, the students really felt relieved, as it was a fast paced game. A lot of students said that the dynamic nature, spontaneity and overall the uniqueness of the game made it fun, and made them forget all the brain hassle that went into the panning. By the end of the event, you could see a satisfied smile on their faces.

The most memorable moment was when two teams spoke about the event during the closing ceremony. They said, “It was our most favorite event and the event clearly shows the efforts put in by the organizers”. Those words were more than any reward. It is the best memory I have in IIT Guwahati.

5. Who came up with the event name and how?

Ashish came up with the event name. It was inspired by the nature of the game. Rather than bidding extensively, the game required that you bid only according to your calculations and be content even when you don’t buy too many products. It was in a way ironical too that the name of game which required players to bid extensively is “A Little Bid’. That’s why we chose this name.

6. And finally, how was your experience conducting an event in Technothlon Mains?

All of the experiences came up in front of our eyes. From struggling to find an idea for the event, to rejection of ideas in several meetings and then finally the tiring penultimate day of event. It was in a way, the feeling of being proud to be able to do that what other people will admire afterwards. Altogether we were pretty much satisfied by the Technothlon and our contribution in it to make it a big success.

Technothlon is and has always been more than just an examination. Doesn’t matter how you’re involved — an organizer, a participant, a student from a rural school where a LED has been conducted — everyone gets something valuable from Technothlon. With a new edition on the way, no stone will be left unturned to make sure that this year, like every year, everyone involved gains something invaluable from Technothlon

Pratyay Nigam & Vishak Regu
Chief Organizers, Technothlon’17