The APOGEE English Press (AEP) sat down with Aditya, coordinator of the Chemical Engineering Association (ChEA), to gain insight into what they have in store for the fest.

ChEA is an association of students from the Chemical Engineering branch, serving as a medium for the students to connect with their professors, both inside and beyond the classroom, and strengthen the bonds amongst their peers and mentors.

This year, the association will be conducting three events. Their first event is Scentopia, a paid stall ​​replacing last year’s event, Labyrinth. Scentopia would be a paid event where participants can mix and customise various oils and essences to create their perfume and take it home as a keepsake, offering a unique and exciting experience.

Furthermore, OptiChem, an event introduced last year, will also be conducted this year. OptiChem is a coding-based optimisation event involving MATLAB and Python, where participants would be asked to optimise a given code. This event is open to everybody, including non-chemical engineering students with coding knowledge. The prize pool is around INR 3000 for first place, 2000 for the second, and 1000 for the third. Aditya mentioned that this year, due to the increased budgets for the fest, they had increased the prize pool for the competition.

Finally, ChEA would be conducting its flagship event, Chem-E-Trade, a simulation of the industry where participants would trade resources and effectively manage their materials to build the best industry, which would be judged by its efficiency and the amount of money left. The prize pool for the competition is the same as that of OptiChem.

Aditya mentioned that the association invites their department professors to judge events such as OptiChem due to their fluency in Python and MATLAB. Additionally, they are called to supervise the participants of the Chem-E-Trade. 

When asked about his experience as the coordinator of the association, Aditya mentioned that while the initial work was not demanding, the workload had significantly increased as APOGEE neared, especially given that they would be replacing Labyrinth with Scentopia, which would require a lot of trial runs and planning. He stated that the team meetings got disrupted due to the mid-semester exams and Holi break, but the team has returned on track. Aditya also noted that peer support is a crucial factor in the success of the preparations and brings a friendly and easy-going vibe to the meetings overall.

On a final note, Aditya advised the 2024 batch to take part in the various technical events on campus, such as RoboWars, coding competitions and hackathons. Doing so would allow students to further gauge their interests and understand what niches excite them.