Nebula'09
The 2009 edition of Nebula, named Nebula'9, was a great success with over 1000 students registering from all over the country. The contest was held in three rounds, the first round being an on-line quiz to test the contestants' hold of fundamentals in EE. 80 participants successfully cleared the quiz, qualifying for the second round.
In the second round, the contestants were introduced to the output path of an Audio system. The task was to answer various questions that break the system down to individual components. Answering the questions, the contestants would gather a feel of how the performance metrics for the system are tied to the components used and their mutual trade-offs. The second round would also be their first taste of non-idealities in the real world and how they can affect performance. 18 participants qualified with successful entries, making it to our design centre in Bangalore for the final round.
In the final round, the contestants were introduced to two specific challenges in the Audio system they had analysed in the second round. With Audio engineers from Cosmic available for discussion, the finalists were to try out their ideas and put together solutions to address the challenges. Following the contest, the Audio quest for the finalists was drawn to a conclusion with a lab demonstration of Cosmic's own Audio solution in action. Prize distribution was held in the evening, the finalists getting an opportunity to interact with the founders and senior management of Cosmic over dinner.
Joyan Sanctis from NIT Surathkal won the first prize. Srinivas Kumar Reddy from IISc Bangalore won the second prize and Santhosh Kumar G from IIT Bombay won the third prize.