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Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings. Civil engineering is the second-oldest engineering discipline after military engineering, and it is defined to distinguish non-military engineering from military engineering. It is traditionally broken into several sub-disciplines including environmental engineering, geotechnical engineering, geophysics, geodesy, control engineering, structural engineering, transportation engineering, earth science, atmospheric sciences, forensic engineering, municipal or urban engineering, water resources engineering, materials engineering, offshore engineering, quantity surveying, coastal engineering, surveying, and construction engineering. Civil engineering takes place in the public sector from municipal through to national governments, and in the private sector from individual homeowners through to international companies.

 

History of Civil Engineering:

 

Until modern times there was no clear distinction between civil engineering and architecture, and the term engineer and architect were mainly geographical variations referring to the same occupation, and often used interchangeably. The construction of pyramids in Egypt (circa 2700–2500 BC) were some of the first instances of large structure constructions. Other ancient historic civil engineering constructions include the Qanat water management system (the oldest is older than 3000 years and longer than 71 km,) the Parthenon by Iktinos in Ancient Greece (447–438 BC), the Appian Way by Roman engineers (c. 312 BC), the Great Wall of China by General Meng T’ien under orders from Ch’in Emperor Shih Huang Ti (c. 220 BC) and the stupas constructed in ancient Sri Lanka like the Jetavanaramaya and the extensive irrigation works in Anuradhapura. The Romans developed civil structures throughout their empire, including especially aqueducts, insulae, harbors, bridges, dams and roads.

In the 18th century, the term civil engineering was coined to incorporate all things civilian as opposed to military engineering. The first self-proclaimed civil engineer was John Smeaton, who constructed the Eddystone Lighthouse.

Civil engineering is the application of physical and scientific principles for solving the problems of society, and its history is intricately linked to advances in understanding of physics and mathematics throughout history. Because civil engineering is a wide ranging profession, including several separate specialized sub-disciplines, its history is linked to knowledge of structures, materials science, geography, geology, soils, hydrology, environment, mechanics and other fields.

Throughout ancient and medieval history most architectural design and construction was carried out by artisans, such as stonemasons and carpenters, rising to the role of master builder. Knowledge was retained in guilds and seldom supplanted by advances. Structures, roads and infrastructure that existed were repetitive, and increases in scale were incremental.

One of the earliest examples of a scientific approach to physical and mathematical problems applicable to civil engineering is the work of Archimedes in the 3rd century BC, including Archimedes Principle, which underpins our understanding of buoyancy, and practical solutions such as Archimedes’ screw. Brahmagupta, an Indian mathematician, used arithmetic in the 7th century AD, based on Hindu-Arabic numerals, for excavation (volume) computations.

 A Roman aqueduct [built circa 19 BC] near Pont du Gard, France.

 

Sub-Disciplines:

• Material Science & Engineering: Materials engineering also consists of protection and prevention like paints and finishes. Alloying is another aspect of materials engineering, combining two types of metals to produce a more useful metal. It incorporates elements of applied physics and chemistry. With significant media attention focused on nanoscience and nanotechnology in recent years, materials science has been propelled to the forefront at many universities. It is also an important part of forensic engineering and failure analysis. Materials science also deals with fundamental properties and characteristics of materials.

  

• Construction Engineering: Construction engineering involves planning and execution of the designs from transportation, site development, hydraulic, environmental, structural and geotechnical engineers. As construction firms tend to have higher business risk than other types of civil engineering firms, many construction engineers tend to take on a role that is more business-like in nature: drafting and reviewing contracts, evaluating logistical operations, and closely monitoring prices of necessary supplies.

  

• Earthquake Engineering: Earthquake engineering covers ability of various structures to withstand hazardous earthquake exposures at the sites of their particular location. Earthquake engineering is a sub discipline of the broader category of Structural engineering. The main objectives of earthquake engineering are to understand interaction of structures with the shaky ground; foresee the consequences of possible earthquakes; and design, construct and maintain structures to perform at earthquake exposure up to the expectations and in compliance with building codes.

 

• Environmental Engineering: Environmental engineering deals with the treatment of chemical, biological, and/or thermal waste, the purification of water and air, and the remediation of contaminated sites, due to prior waste disposal or accidental contamination. Among the topics covered by environmental engineering are pollutant transport, water purification, waste water treatment, air pollution, solid waste treatment and hazardous waste management. Environmental engineers can be involved with pollution reduction, green engineering, and industrial ecology. Environmental engineering also deals with the gathering of information on the environmental consequences of proposed actions and the assessment of effects of proposed actions for the purpose of assisting society and policy makers in the decision making process.

 

• Geotechnical Engineering: Geotechnical engineering is an area of civil engineering concerned with the rock and soil that support civil engineering systems. Knowledge from the fields of geology, material science and testing, mechanics, and hydraulics are applied by geotechnical engineers to safely and economically design foundations, retaining walls, and similar structures. Environmental concerns in relation to groundwater and waste disposal have spawned a new area of study called geoenvironmental engineering where biology and chemistry are important.

 

• Water Resource Engineering: Water resources engineering is concerned with the collection and management of water (as a natural resource). As a discipline it therefore combines hydrology, environmental science, meteorology, geology, conservation, and resource management. This area of civil engineering relates to the prediction and management of both the quality and the quantity of water in both underground (aquifers) and above ground (lakes, rivers, and streams) resources. Water resource engineers analyze and model very small to very large areas of the earth to predict the amount and content of water as it flows into, through, or out of a facility. Although the actual design of the facility may be left to other engineers.

 

• Structural Engineering: Structural engineering is concerned with the structural design and structural analysis of buildings, bridges, towers, flyovers (overpasses), tunnels, off shore structures like oil and gas fields in the sea, aero structure and other structures. This involves identifying the loads which act upon a structure and the forces and stresses which arise within that structure due to those loads, and then designing the structure to successfully support and resist those loads. The loads can be self-weight of the structures, other dead load, live loads, moving (wheel) load, wind load, earthquake load, load from temperature change etc. The structural engineer must design structures to be safe for their users and to successfully fulfil the function they are designed for (to be serviceable). Due to the nature of some loading conditions, sub-disciplines within structural engineering have emerged, including wind engineering and earthquake engineering.

 

• Surveying: Surveying is the process by which a surveyor measures certain dimensions that generally occur on the surface of the Earth. Surveying equipment, such as levels and theodolites, are used for accurate measurement of angular deviation, horizontal, vertical and slope distances. With computerisation, electronic distance measurement (EDM), total stations, GPS surveying and laser scanning have supplemented (and to a large extent supplanted) the traditional optical instruments. This information is crucial to convert the data into a graphical representation of the Earth’s surface, in the form of a map. This information is then used by civil engineers, contractors and even realtors to design from, build on, and trade, respectively. Elements of a building or structure must be correctly sized and positioned in relation to each other and to site boundaries and adjacent structures. Although surveying is a distinct profession with separate qualifications and licensing arrangements, civil engineers are trained in the basics of surveying and mapping, as well as geographic information systems. Surveyors may also lay out the routes of railways, tramway tracks, highways, roads, pipelines and streets as well as position other infrastructures, such as harbours, before construction.

 

• Transportation Engineering: Transportation engineering is concerned with moving people and goods efficiently, safely, and in a manner conducive to a vibrant community. This involves specifying, designing, constructing, and maintaining transportation infrastructure which includes streets, canals, highways, rail systems, airports, ports, and mass transit. It includes areas such as transportation design, transportation planning, traffic engineering, and some aspects of urban engineering, queuing theory, pavement engineering, Intelligent Transportation System (ITS), and infrastructure management.

 

• Municipal and Urban Engineering: Municipal engineering is concerned with municipal infrastructure. This involves specifying, designing, constructing, and maintaining streets, sidewalks, water supply networks, sewers, street lighting, municipal solid waste management and disposal, storage depots for various bulk materials used for maintenance and public works (salt, sand, etc.), public parks and bicycle paths. In the case of underground utility networks, it may also include the civil portion (conduits and access chambers) of the local distribution networks of electrical and telecommunications services. It can also include the optimizing of waste collection and bus service networks. Some of these disciplines overlap with other civil engineering specialties, however municipal engineering focuses on the coordination of these infrastructure networks and services, as they are often built simultaneously, and managed by the same municipal authority.

 

• Forensic Engineering: Forensic engineering is the investigation of materials, products, structures or components that fail or do not operate or function as intended, causing personal injury or damage to property. The consequences of failure are dealt with by the law of product liability. The field also deals with retracing processes and procedures leading to accidents in operation of vehicles or machinery. The subject is applied most commonly in civil law cases, although it may be of use in criminal law cases. Generally the purpose of a Forensic engineering investigation is to locate cause or causes of failure with a view to improve performance or life of a component, or to assist a court in determining the facts of an accident. It can also involve investigation of intellectual property claims, especially patents.

 

• Control Engineering: Control engineering (or control systems engineering) is the branch of civil engineering discipline that applies control theory to design systems with desired behaviours. The practice uses sensors to measure the output performance of the device being controlled (often a vehicle) and those measurements can be used to give feedback to the input actuators that can make corrections toward desired performance. When a device is designed to perform without the need of human inputs for correction it is called automatic control (such as cruise control for regulating a car’s speed). Multidisciplinary in nature, control systems engineering activities focus on implementation of control systems mainly derived by mathematical modelling of systems of a diverse range.

 

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Hey, Guys!

Some of you might’ve got an internship or training somewhere while some of you haven’t. Internship or not, vacations are a great time to learn. There’s a plethora of stuff that you can do. From developing websites, smart phone apps and games to studying a subject that you are really interested in and maybe get started with some research work (though it is easier said than done).

In the end of the third year, you all will be looking for a serious internship and in the final year, a job.  Your resume is the first thing that will help you get noticed by recruiters. Your resume should reflect what your ambitions are and what you have done to achieve them.

Before you start building your resume, ask yourself what is that you want to do when you get out of college. Is it higher studies (for MBA or M.Tech. or MS…) and research that you want to pursue or do you want to join an organization and write code for them, or maybe you aspire to become an entrepreneur, maybe become a freelancer or  some other plan that you have for yourself.   If you are in 2^nd year, NOW is the time to start thinking and drawing out a plan; if you are in the 1^st year, a head start is always great. I don’t pretend to be an expert on this, even I am trying to find my path; I’ll just tell you what I know and hope that it’ll help you.

First of all, understand that the goal of studying, participating in competitions or developing software is not (or rather SHOULD not be) to make a good resume. A resume is just a by-product of the actions that you take to achieve your ambition. You want to achieve something and for that, you study stuff, you do stuff, you develop stuff, and that stuff is what goes on your resume. Trust me if you think of it this way, it’ll be much more fun.

Many of you took Computer Engineering by choice and many of you got it because you didn’t get your first choice. The fact is that you are now in a field that has innumerable possibilities of innovation and vast space for new stuff. All you need is a laptop and you can make the next big thing! Some other branches of engineering have the constraint of availability of resources. They have to wait in turn to get some time on equipment. They might not even have some equipment in their institute. But we all have the equipment in our rooms!

Okay, so let’s get to the point.

If you want to pursue higher studies in Computer Science abroad, then your goal should be to gain research experience. Because that’s what the universities see. They want to know if you really are into something or are applying only because you have nothing else to do.

Research might sound like a big word. Because it is a big word. It requires lots of hard work before you can start saying “Research”. But to get started, identify your area of interest and talk to the professors in our department. They’ll tell you what to read. The list of research areas of all faculties is given on the SVNIT website. Use Google to find the currently active areas of research. Join courses on edx.org and coursera.org to understand the subject you are interested in.  Even if you can’t decide your area of interest, just go and talk to a faculty and they’ll help you out.

For those who want to do Masters in India, you’ll have to give GATE exam. Go online, check out its syllabus. It’s mostly what we have in our curriculum. So just make sure that you understand each topic well.

If you want to join an organization and code for them, then START CODING! Many organizations ask questions like those in competitive programming in their hiring process. So keeping your skills sharp will be advantageous. Not only that, good companies also require experience. Eg. they may ask for experience in web development or system programming or some other field. Prove yourself worthy of hire by developing some useful software.

Contribute to Open Source. Google Summer of Code is a very popular internship related to OSS. If you are aiming at that, START NOW. GSoC doesn’t only need apply. It’s not so easy to get it. Google “how to prepare for GSoC” and start now. There’s nothing called early start.

An organization will be very happy with you if you show them that you know stuff and they won’t have to spend much time training you. Even if what you have developed is not related to what a company does, they’ll still acknowledge that you made something and you know how to develop stuff.

A few possibilities related to development are Android or iPhone app development, Web browser extensions development, Web designing, Web development, Windows Desktop app development and Java Applet development.

There’s a lot to learn out there. A LOT we don’t know. Online learning website like edx.org and coursera.org are invaluable. Needless to say, there are a lot of worthy courses. Join a course, be regular. Just don’t be stagnant. College is the time when you have plenty of time to learn stuff.

Whatever doubts you have, we at CEV are always there to help you out. You just need to reach out to us or seniors in your department.

I feel that, as Computer Engineers, we have the power to make anything we want. Whatever is going on in your head, you can materialize it. Make it right and people will use it and appreciate it. People will use something that was once just a figment of your imagination and you materialized it out of nowhere.  This is what motivates me 🙂

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Ever thought engineering was boring? Ever fell asleep reading from a textbook? Lost interest lately?

Try watching this film and I bet you’ll get interested. Packed with visuals and animations that could drive concepts into your skull, this video series was conceived and produced by a team from Applied Mechanics Department of SVNIT, Surat. Professor Dr. H.S Patil along with Sundareson, Ramon and Anandkumar started off with the idea and a script while professional filmmaker Chakshu Khatsuria finished it off with his expertise.

This film is about Load Transfer Mechanism in Structures. It could be appealing to students taking their first course in Structural engineering or Civil engineering.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Entrepreneurs are generally perceived as insane risk-takers; a surreal combination of Wolverine and Batman; aggressive yet calm, intuitive yet rational and reckless yet brave. Entrepreneurs are generally perceived as those riding lions: fast-paced and those diving off an airplane without a parachute: courageous. But the question is, if only five per cent entrepreneurs end up working on their original idea, only two per cent end up providing value, and only 0.5% end up having monetary success; how should this dream be pursued?

Jump without a rope!
In ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, Batman learns that you can go into full throttle only when there is no back up. Entrepreneurship teaches you to put all your eggs, fruits, hair-dryer, mobile-phone and everything else in one basket. If you have a backup, it’s you who have failed and not your startup. In any case, unless you took unreasonable risks while pursuing your startup, dealing with its failure will be an unpleasant and a ridiculously boring affair. It’s more like a step along the journey.

It’s about the journey and not the destination
As a startup, people will ask you, “Where do you see yourself after five years from now?” while you are still figuring out which client will be paying for your next lunch. In a startup, you learn. You learn to react to insulting situations, uncomforting questions and demeaning feedbacks. In a startup, you build, modify, test, rinse and repeat. It’s an incremental and an agile perspective towards life. You will never want it to end. It’s certainly addictive.

The outcome is not binary
Chances are that you might not become a billionaire but also, chances are that you might not end up on the street begging. There are millions of shades of grey between black and white, there are infinite rational numbers between 0 and 1 and there are millions of outcomes possible when you have a startup. It’s scary, yes! But it’s even more exciting. That fear of uncertainty, that feeling of not knowing the outcome, that thought-process when you are not in control of everything; there are very few things which can trigger such emotions. They are so rare, the English dictionary has no words for it!

Businesses die, entrepreneurs don’t
A misleading element in the perception of success rate is that you only have one shot at it, so you better make it. Startups never sink or swim. They give you a swing of directions. You give up your corporate job, you put in all the savings, your company fails and you can’t get back to your original career. There, you have another direction all together. And mind well, if a startup fails, a negligible amount of people can go back to their jobs. You are addicted; ruined. You will flock with the most like-minded, risk taking, lean, suave and convincing SOBs around. And you will start another one! Entrepreneurship is a career. So long as you don’t hit yourself in the face with the bat, you can keep taking swing after swing after swing.

 

 

Yash Shah

SVNIT Alumni

CEO & Founder Gridle 

www.yashshah.in

Reading Time: 3 minutes

 “There is nothing that inspires you more than a good film”

Every Engineer that has ever happened, seems to share a common curiosity, watching films. Thanks to DC++ that we have terabytes of films available at our disposal. Be it mess, canteen or lectures, we tend to discuss about the latest films that we have watched.

Everyone love films, but what is the actual process that goes into filmmaking?

Before coming to that, I would like to ask you, what actually is a film?

STORY+ACTING+CAMERA+A LITTLE PINCH OF MUSIC= FILM!

Well, that seems to be the mathematical formula for that, but even after all this your film should make a meaning i.e. there should be a moral to your story. Without it, the film would be nothing but a normal video.

Now, coming to the process of Filmmaking. The process includes three main components. i.e

1. Pre-Production
2. Production
3. Post-production

 

Pre-production: As it is said, everything starts with an idea. A film, being no exception also starts with an Idea. Hopefully, an idea could be anything, from the life of people in prison (The Shawshank Redemption) to three random guys in a college (3 Idiots). You can even make a movie on your way to the class at mornings. You just need to be creative enough to see the story.

Making a story is never enough, you need to write it down in the form of a screenplay. The screenplay/script is a written form of film that contains dialogues, actions, expression and behaviour of different characters. Screenplay is written in a definite format which initially one might find unusual to the typical scripts. Screenplay of many movies are available on the internet. One can easily find them via google. Also, there are various software available for script writing. Most popular ones are CELTX, FINAL DRAFT and MONTAGE etc.

The other parts of pre-production includes documenting the shots, scouting the locations and casting the actors.

Production: This is the second part of Film making. It includes going to the scouted locations and shooting the scenes. There are various things that needs to be taken care of while shooting the film.

Composition: Composition simply means preparing the scene i.e. to make the scene solve its purpose. To do this there are various shots that one can take during the shoot. Those includes long medium, close-up, birds eye etc. There is a specific use for every shot. The details could be found on the internet. There is a thumb rule for the purpose i.e. the closer the camera is to the character, the more viewer has a deep insight for the character.

Acting: Acting is one thing that can do wonders for a film and also might prove bad if not done properly. The director needs to work with the actors properly to get the desired acting.

Cameras: The type of cameras and lenses prove very important for the film. At our level, DSLRs do a nice jobs. Even if you don’t have a DSLR you can shoot by a digital camera or phone. Camera is just a tool for movie making but at the same time it is quite important.

Once you are done with all the shooting, it’s time for Post-production.

Post Production: It is the last step of the process of filmmaking. This requires the sorting of shots, merging them and adding music to them. This could be done with the help of an editing software. The best ones include Adobe Premier Pro, Sony Vegas Pro, Power Director etc.

Except the above, there is a golden rule of filmmaking, “The more you see, the more you learn” Watch as many movies as you can to get a good idea of making films.

 

Vinayak Vyas.

BTECH III, CIVIL ENGINEERING. 

Reading Time: 2 minutes

 

1.       Facility to download IEEE Research Papers for no cost through SVNIT  Local Area Network

IEEE is The World’s largest professional association for the advancement of technology. For us, it is a very good platform to read about all Research Papers written for all branches of Electrical & Electronics Engineers. But you need to be a member of that particular IEEE society to be able to download and read the paper. But!!! Our college provided us access to IEEE papers from our campus. So if you connect to IEEE website from our college LAN then you can access and download the papers!!!

So wait for what?? Read the latest research papers on various IEEE Societies mentioned on –http://www.ieee.org/membership_services/membership/societies/index.html

Link to IEEE Explore for seeing a Research Paper of your interest- http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/home.jsp

 

2.       Magazine and Journal Section in Central Library

Entering Central Library and on the second floor there is a Section for Magazines and journals for all branches which are the best way to stay in touch with the latest in technology. So go any explore your technical interest…..

 

3.       Reference Section 2^nd Floor Central Library

We have a whole section of the best reference books for 100s different topics of all branches in our Reference Section. Avail that facility to read them and get your fundamentals crystal clear

 

4.       Digital Library – Store house of all well know Tech Journals ….

Go to svnit.ac.in -> Central Facility -> Central Library -> On Right Section Digital Library LINK

You need to login through our college LAN and then you can access various cool stuff like

E-Books –Springler E-books, Cambridge University Press E-Book …….

E-Journals – Science Direct,  ACM Digital Library, Institute of Civil Engineering Journals, Engineering Science Data Unit Series etc..

Purchased/Subscribed Standards

Previous Year Question Papers

Reading Time: 3 minutes

First of all, to write a paper, you need to have some things with you

• An idea, a new concept.
• Microsoft word/ Linux (This article will cover mostly the part in which you can type in word, the Linux part will be discussed in later blog)
• A book, pen!!!
• Math -type software (for typing formulas)
• Lots of patience with will and vigor

The 1^st step will be to formulate the idea clearly. Understand the idea deep enough and its implications. For a theoretical paper, this process takes time depending on how deep the result/idea could strike. Most of the time, people don’t understand their ideas deep enough and it creates problems in the later sections where they have to show some applications/implications of their idea. Hence, formulate it in simplest possible terms, both in Mathematics (if applicable) and English. Distill it till you can tell it in smallest number of words (That is one of the best ways to check if an idea is complete).

As Einstein says, ”If you cannot explain it to a child, u r probably wrong!!”

 

The 2^nd step is to write a basic outline of the idea, in a book will be better, as it gives a physical feel.

3^rd step will be to select a journal in which to submit your article. It is very important to select the correct journal, as selecting the wrong journal involves 2 risks.

• Time: For a moderate level journal and above, the time taken in reviewing an article varies from 2 to 3 months and goes on. So if you are submitting in the wrong journal, u r wasting a lot of time.
• Circulation: If your idea can strike deep enough, then the resubmissions involve a risk of imitation. Although, this can be avoided by preprints. (google for more)

Generally, the selection is based on two criteria; Topic and Impact factor

Impact factor is the number of people who look in to search about new advances. The higher the impact factor, the more famous, and tougher to get your article published in it. Although there are many journals who play with numbers to show higher impact factor, but generally better than average publishers are Elsevier, Springer, IEEE (for electronic and electrical people), nature to name a few.

Also check here the journal is cited .i.e. where will the article appear once it is published. Check for Sciverse, Sci, Sci expanded, Google scholar etc although it is not necessary that it should be at all places.

Remember that the third parameter can be compromised upto a certain level. I mean it is meaningless to publish if it doesn’t appear anywhere, so go accordingly.

Once selection is complete, type your content according to the journal’s format, which they give in Author Guidelines section. If you have typed in above section, just adjust it according to the journal’s format.

Take care to note all your references, from where you have looked for contents, papers, books etc.

The title and abstract should be written only after writing the whole paper, as it is the tagline of paper. The title and abstract must convey the basic idea of what is in the paper, as people read these when they look for article.

Submit your article, ad wait for their response. Generally, rejections are faster, so hat you get time to target your next journal.

Typing in Linux is a totally different story which I shall discuss in later blog!

Best of Luck.

 

 

Binoy Nambiar

3^rd Year Electronics

Email: nambiarbinoy@yahoo.co.in

Reading Time: 4 minutes

 

Quoting what IIT Delhi Global Internship Program FAQ;s Have to say:

https://sites.google.com/site/aicetinterns/

 

  I am a student of the <>th semester, can I apply ?

Every student is (wrongly) advised by seniors to go for a internship at the earliest opportunity. Senior students often tell junior students (wrongly) that grades don’t count, and that projects are all that matter. They are wrong. Grades count – we look at your grades very carefully when we select you for the Internship.

The best time to go for a Internship is in the summer following Semester 6 + Semester 7 (nearly 9 months), or the whole of Semester 7 + winter + Semester 8 (almost a year). Without doing your discipline courses in Semesters 6 and 7, you could be very badly prepared for any internship.

Please try to follow the advice below when you choose your Internship period:

If you are a student of Semester …. :	Advice
Semester 1,2,3	Please do not come for this internship or ANY internship for that matter in Semester 1-3. Take your textbooks for the next semester and study the chapters. Try to solve the questions and read alternative textbooks in the area. Also, do NOT join C# / .ASP / .NET coaching classes – such courses only reduce your study time. An employer will probably hire a programmer for these skills and not a software engineer.  Confused ? The difference between a software engineer and a programmer is like the difference between a doctor and a compounder. Both can administer a injection, perhaps even equally well – but only the doctor would knowwhy the injection was necessary. Even if the compounder, due to long practice, gets to administer the injecton more deftly than the doctor, the doctor will still be the only of the two who knows why. The compounder would always know just how to administer the injection. If programming also interests you, buy a good book on the language you want to program in, download linux (www.ubuntu.com) and learn it for free at home.
Semester 4	Please avoid coming for a Internship in Semester 4 unless there is something special you think you need to do. Special things could be going to Institute X because there is a Scientist X there who specialises in Algorithm Y, taking a course in a area not taught in your Institute next semester.
Semester 5, 6	Prepare for your Internship by doing all of the following: Read the latest journals in areas of interest every Friday – either in the library or on the net (see www.webproforum.com) Read alternative text books Read IEEE / IEE Journals for recent papers – don’t bother if you don’t understand everything at first (30% understood is good enough). Keep reading. Form Special Interest Groups (SIGs), meet on a weekly basis and discuss topics Give (voluntarily) a Weekly Seminar on what you read – you could give this to your Special Interest Group Talk to your own Faculty / lab technicians for possible projects you could do – whether in lab-oriented or theoretical projects. Start identifying faculty in your institute or outside your Institute in the areas of interest. Write to them. Do NOT write emails indiscriminately to hundreds of people – it will backfire on you when you are found out. Attend conferences, talks and lectures in your city. Watch Discovery, CNN, National Geographic and Eklavya. Join a local library. Visit the local University library. Read fiction and non-fiction. Take Art classes. Take pottery classes. Learn to play a musical instrument. Watch lectures of the courses you are being taught on YouTube. Read the course material of the courses being taught to you on MIT’s Open courseware site or IIT’s NPTEL site. Apply for Internship in time
Semester 7,8	Try to do projects within your Institute. Accomodation is not a problem. People know you and your background and the chance of being handed a task you cannot execute is minimal. On the other hand, a Faculty Member in another Institute is very likely to assume that you have done something in your coursework which you have not done.  You avoid all the following when you do your project in your own Institute ! It is no joke – it cuts into work time and influences work moods significantly.Only when it is absolutely unavoidable, go outside your Institute to do a Internship. And if you do go to another Institute, give first priority to availability of accomodation on campus even if it is marginally more expensive. This saves time and you get to meet more people in your peer group, have longer working hours and tend to achieve much more in your Internship. Coming to a strange city or a strange country getting accomodation, or even having to adjust yourself into a relative’s home for six long months having constantly worried parents dealing with indifferent food going through long commutes suffering irregular mealtimes

 

Things I would like to add:

2 most inspiring and knowledgeable novel that will change your thinking:

Fountainhead By Ayn Rand

 Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell

For ones who are not not good at programming read “The C Programming Language (Ansi C Version) 2nd Edition” written by creator of C – Dennis Rotchie. It costs only Rs 146!!! Link

For 1^st yearites the best option to get their 1^st year concepts right by watching videos @ NPTEL’s & MIT 1st year course for EC & Comps students Link1 Link2

Videos of Basic 1^st and 2^nd sem subjects. Just watch them at 1.5x speed as you may feel them to be bit slow!!!

 Few good place to look for Internships online: www.internshala.com, www.twenty19.com

+ List of Online Portal to see video lectures, projects, departmental magazines, some god father tech sites is provided in “Extra Edgy Things For All Engineers” Blog

Reading Time: 3 minutes

START GUI DEVELOPMENT WITH C#.NET

It’s obvious that no one likes to work with Command line applications. Even though your application may be performance wise superior, users will choose the application with the better Graphical User Interface.

So, is it hard developing GUI application?

No it’s damn easy to develop a GUI app.

There were days when creating GUI applications with Win32 API (Application programing interface) was a headache. But now with the help of Visual Studio one can make simple-basic applications just by some drag and drop features and few lines (literally 10-15 line) of code.

First of all you will require Visual Studio C# 2010/Visual studio windows desktop 2013. You can download it from the following URL.

http://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs

All the express editions are for free.

Visual Studio is one of the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) used for the development of GUI application. An IDE is software that aids a programmer in developing complex application. Most of the time the IDE will provide the skeleton code for different part of the application and your job reduces to only filling the code at the required places.

While working with VS (Visual studio)  you may use C# or Visual Basic. But I strongly recommend C#. C# has a remarkable resemblance with JAVA. Even if you don’t know JAVA, learning C# is not rocket science.

The development in VS takes place in two views:

1>     Code View: This is where we write the actual code for the actions that have to be executed on different events (like clicking, mouse hover, etc.).

2>     Design View: This is where we design how the application looks. We can include GUI elements by just selecting them from the Tool Box. In this way we generate GUI elements and edit their properties without manually writing code for them in the code view.

NOTE: If you want you can manually write code for GUI elements in the code view.

For example if you want to create a button, you’ll first go to design view select button from the tool box and place it on the screen. And you can change the properties like name, size, colour, text and other visual attributes of the button.

If you want something to be done when a button is clicked, all you have to do is double click the button in the design view and IDE will take you to the place where coding for the button has to be done. All the empty function will be generated automatically and you just have to fill in the code.

This is the general flow in which the development of various parts of an application takes place. It is not possible to explain the actual process in a single post.The following source contains very good compilation of all the basic information if you want to learn C#.NET for GUI applications. It contains the information on commonly used classes and how to use them in your code. The tutorial is meant for beginners and contains step by step instructions.

http://www.homeandlearn.co.uk/csharp/csharp.html

 

Learning to develop GUI application is easy and straight forward but not a one day task. I would recommend you to be regular and understand by implementing the topics in the above mention link.

Happy coding!

 

Manav Prajapati

3rd Year Comps

SVNIT

Email: manav245@gmail.com

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Electrical engineering is one of the pioneers in modern development. This branch has its origin dated

back to the times when magnetism and electricity were discovered. Today, it provides the 4th

requirement of humans after air, water and food- electricity. It is known as the mother branch of

Electronics, Communication and Computer Science.

 

• Broad classification of Electrical Engineering-

 1. Power System- It deals with the generation, transmission, distribution of electric

power. Moreover, it deals with stability and fault analysis of electrical lines.

If possible, visit a power plant.

 2. Control and Optimization- It deals with control systems which regulates almost

every machine and process. For example, to regulate a movement of robotic arm,

the design of complete system comes under this subject. This is a subject for you

if you are interested in Mathematics. This subject along with Microcontrollers,

forms the exciting automation subject (which is present in almost every modern

equipment). For further reference:www-control.eng.cam.ac.uk

 3. Power electronics- When electronics is applied for power conversion. This forms

integral part of modern power system. (If you are fascinated by inverter made by

Rancho in 3 idiots, then this is the subject for you)

 4. Machines- A subject of imagination. I don’t think you need description for this

subject

 5. Electrical Circuits- This part will serve as a basis for all the subjects described above.

 6. Microprocessor, Microcontrollers and Embedded System- If you are fond of

electronics and programming, these courses are for you. Almost every appliance

uses embedded system, for its control and operation.

 

• Things to do in summer –

 1. Visit a motor rewinding workshop. It will give you real insight of windings in

electrical machine. It will definitely serve as a base for subjects like Electrical

Machine 1 & 2. Moreover there is no prior permission required, you can just go

there, give your introduction and ask them to explain you the windings of machine.

 2. Do not ignore MATHEMATICS. There are many subjects in Electrical Engineering

which heavily rely on calculus and linear algebra. If you love to study apart from

your normal curriculum, there are online courses of calculus and linear algebra on

following website:ocw.mit.edu

 3. Probably everyone related to engineering has given this advice- Learn C

programming. And I am sure that majority of you have ignored it. I will just say-

If you want to peacefully clear your engineering, sit down in your room, watch

movie- The Social Network, get some motivation for programming, and learn C

programming. I know this is hard, but sometimes we don’t have options.