Soapy Grey Matter is the unofficial quizzing community of Nirma Institute of Technology formed with the aim to foster quizzing environment in the institution and to share interesting trivia catering all topics under the sun, along with having fun.

Oct 9, 2011

IIT Bombay Techfest National Open Quiz

Techfest National Open Quiz


Techfest 2011-12 shall host the largest inter-institutional quiz in India, The “Techfest National Open Quiz 2011-12”. With a prize money of INR 1,00,000 for the grand finale and much more interesting prizes this quiz aims to bring together the best quizzers from across the nation. The quiz will be held at Pune, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Guwahati, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai and the winners of all the cities will finally clash during Techfest 2011-12 to claim the title of the Techfest National Open Quiz Champions.

Quizmaster: Rohit Nair
Flavour: General
Format: Written prelims; Stage Finals with 6 teams. Winners to be invited to Techfest, IIT Bombay in January for the Grand Finale. Two members per team compulsary; No cross institutional teams strictly; Registrations on www.techfest.org/tnoq and also on the spot registrations; No entry fees


Ahmedabad edition will be held on 18th October, IIM Ahmedabad 3 pm onwards.


Contact


Phone: Rohan (98901 06884) Email: rohan.k[at]techfest.org
           Arindam (97695 85892Email: arindam[at]techfest.org


Prizes

Award and Certificate policy

  • The finals in Techfest during January shall carry prize money of INR 1,00,000
  • The winner of each city shall be provided both sides travel to come to Mumbai for the finals 6th-8th January for the finals.
  • City rounds in shall have prizes worth INR 10,000.
  • The grand finalist, semifinalists and all final round qualifiers of the city rounds shall be awarded certificates of excellence.

Oct 3, 2011

Tata Crucible: Corporate Quiz: 2011

Here are the questions from this year's Tata Crucible Corporate Ahmedabad edition.

Prelims


  1. Which is the most paid visited monument in the world?
  2.  Zaibatsu is a Japanese term referring to industrial and financial business conglomerates in the Empire of Japan. 3 of the Big Four are Mitsui, Mitsuibishi and Yasuda. Which is the fourth?
  3. Which glossy weekly magazine started in 1882 at Arorbans Press, Lahore?
  4. Identify the lady.
  5. Which city’s name appeared in Citibank’s name when it was founded in 1812?
  6.   “The extra half an inch: Hair, heels and everything in between” is the book written by which global celebrity?
  7. How do we better know this company which started its life in 1976 by name of Multitech? [
  8.    Why were only 241 fountain pens issued Mont Blanc for its special Gandhi 241 series? 
  9. Who is currently #9 on Forbes list of Richest Fictional Characters, based on the value of realty in Atlantic City?
  10. Kuensel was the only newspaper of which country till year 2006? [Hint: Happiness is very important to the country!]
  11. A controversial breast milk ice cream was named after a celebrity. What was it's name? 
  12. Book based on which historical character?
  13. What word comes from “bench” in Italian?
  14. Who funded C V Raman for his nobel winning research? 
  15. Who was the founder of H.D.F.C?
  16. Identify this Management guru.
  17. The tag line of which brand is “ The good looking rascal rules”? 
  18. “The softest pillow is a clear conscience”. Whose words?
  19. “Major banks should not only be socially controlled but also publicly owned”.
    Who said it?
  20. Which company does she lead?  [Hint: Competitor of iPhone!]

Sep 17, 2011

The Saga Continues


Prologue
We (Mayank Mujumdar & Siddharth Sheth)were inspired to make a quizzing page for the institute after realising that the quizzing scenario in the university was not very structured and serious quizzers were on a verge of extinction. After referencing several quizzing blogs and pages on Facebook, which we used to visit often [apart from certain unmentionables on the Internet,that is!],  the page came into existence on 18th September,2010.
Our motto "Nos Must Teneo, Nos Mos Teneo" (We Must Know, We Will Know) was taken from the German mathematician David Hilbert's quote "Wir müssen wissen,Wir werden wissen".
For details , refer to the previous note: "The Soapy Grey Matter Story"!
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=188451957837606
Reception & The Numbers
The response to the page had been fantastic since the inception, and we had our first 100 fans in less than 10 days. The page grew by leaps and bounds, and we hit the mark of 500 fans on 9th January,2011. The next landmark, of reaching four figures came on the 4th July, 2011.
We now have 1200+ quizzers from across the world interacting daily through the page. So far, we have posted around500 visual questions, countless textual questions and had around 700+ questions posted by fans! Our posts have been viewed over 13 lakh times and the section "On a lighter note" remains a popular feature, with trivia aimed at providing comic relief.
The questions are meant to encourage lateral thinking and to simulate everyone to be aware of the current and past events happening in all fields . We don not encourage posting trivial/statistics-based questions, for Google is the archnemesis of such questions, and it defeats the entire purpose of the page.
The Extra Dimension
We had organised Quiz Pro Quo, an open quiz on 30 January 2011 at Detour to add an extra dimension to our online activities. The event saw amazing participation with teams, who let go of their precious Sunday morning nap for the quiz. The IIM-A team of Aniket & Sujay were the innaugural winners, followed by the mix team of Achal (IT-NU) & Parasvil (IIT-B). Plans are underway to organize a similar meet again soon.
Inaugural Quiz Pro Quo Session @Detour
30 January 2011

We have collaborated with Rotaract Club of Nirma Institutes and started a monthly quiz session for students of the University. The first session was a General Quiz session conducted by me [Mayank] and the enthusiasm of participants was really encouraging *sniff sniff*, which prompted us to take the next logical move by making it a regular event. We'll be conducting regular quizzes to fulfill our mission towards the development of quizzing as a mind-sport in the campus.
First Quiz Pro Quo Monthly
August 2011

As of now, it seems that the legacy of the IT-NU campus being home to quizzers won't fade way soon.
 The Men at Work (No male chauvinism intended)
The facebook  page and blog is currently being managed by me and Nitin Pillai; who took charge from Achal Shah [currently at UPenn pursuing his Masters]. We post around 5-6 questions on a daily basis, with the fans contributing their questions too.
We can never thank the fans enough for their priceless contribution to the page. Afterall,"Knowledge is not a single man's domain, it's a collective effort!"  

Winding off this note, I'd like to thank and congratulate each one of you for contributing in our growth and development and making this association advance in the process of the sharing of knowledge, because "an investment in knowledge pays the best interest". We hope to continue posting and making our questions further interesting catering more genres as well as providing you with the news of the latest quiz events.

Signing off,
Nos Must Teneo, Nos Mos Teneo
admin.