The APOGEE English Press met with the Coordinator of the EEE Association, Sathvik Bharadwaj, to discuss their role in the upcoming fest. He explained that the purpose of the EEE Association is to cater to the niche of the Phoenix students—hosting discussions, departmental talks, interactions with professors, and batch farewells. He added that the association plans to introduce more events from the next edition of the fest.
Their flagship APOGEE event, the Srikant Vishweswariah Analog Design Contest (SVADC), is held in memory of the late Srikant Vishweswariah, an alumnus of BITS Pilani. He graduated with a degree in Electronics Engineering in 1971, and went on to do his master’s from IIT Kanpur. He served in the Indian Air Force, after which he worked in DRDO as part of the team responsible for developing the LCA Tejas. Following his passing after a battle with cancer, his family started the event to honour his wish of encouraging students’ interest in analog electronics. The event continues to be funded by his family. Mr V. V. Ramanan, a batchmate of Mr Vishweswariah, handles the logistics and serves as the main point of contact between the stakeholders. The Coordinator also expressed his sincere gratitude to Mr Ramanan for his continuous support.
The SVADC is restricted to B.E. and M.E. students enrolled in BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus and consists of three offline rounds. The first round is an MCQ-based pen-and-paper quiz, purely based on analog circuits. It draws inspiration from the second-year electronics courses taught at BITS, specifically ECE/EEE/INSTR F214: Electronic Devices and ECE/EEE/INSTR F244: Microelectronic Circuits. The evaluation is conducted by the professors from our campus. The second and third rounds are design challenges under specific constraints, which are two and three hours long, respectively, based on LTSpice or Cadence-based design.
On a parting note, the Coordinator reiterated the importance and need of analog electronics, and encouraged the readers—especially Phoenix students—to spend time exploring the field.