now, and that is giving us a lot of motivation [laughs]. Our initial expectation of the
difficulty of the problem, and the actual
challenge we are facing are very different.
But now we are finally reaching a good level
in terms of progress.
And I think it is re-
if you make it compulsory, it will fail. We
will be able to reduce the time required for
your actual laboratory. Right now, after going to any lab, half-an-hour is being wasted
just to understand the instrument. With the
Virtual Lab, you can do the experiment
virtually. You need only 30 minutes
of a lab – two students can do the experiment and finish it off, and another
pair of students can do it in the next
half hour. Presently in a group of 6-7
students in a lab, only one or two will
actually work. Secondly, if y ou missed
a lab and you want to understand it
a little more, our current set-up does
not give extra time. Of course, every
experiment cannot be virtualized, and it is
important to keep that in mind.
neering and Civil Engineering.
Apart from SOLVE, what other
projects are being taken up under
the Center for System Design?
Pruthviraj is working on aerial vehicles; taking images from the air to study soil erosion,
active zones in the sea etc. This will be more
economical and with a higher resolution as
compared to satellites. Thermal imaging of
plants is another interest. If I can just take
an image of a tree and tell if it is healthy or
not, it will be a big boon! Of course, it is not
that easy! We also have an ambitious plan of
under-water robotics.
What about undergrads? Do they
work along with you on the projects
of the CSD?
ally a matter of pride that we are the only
NIT among the 13 institutes in India who
are working on the project [pointing to the
website - www.vlab.co.in]. Don’t you feel
happy to see the NITK emblem there? Initially there was an apprehension from the
other side, “After all, what can an NIT do?”
We have overcome that.
CSD is supported by National Instruments.
We don’t really hear much about
the SOLVE lab in college. Are you
planning on opening it out to the
public? What sort of model do you
envision for it in an educational
institute? When will SOLVE enter
the classroom?
You may not hear much about SOLVE as
we don’t do much publicity. But we have
gone outside to around 25 institutes for halfday workshops. We give them a 40 minute
talk, followed by hands-on work. The aim
is to introduce virtual labs in classrooms
eventually, only as an add-on to the course;
10
The Shoreline
In fact, this is all developed by undergrads
[refers to website]. None of this activity
is done by post-graduates. All the coding
is done by B.Tech students. Two students
from 2011 batch, and two from the next
batch were involved. For the post-graduate
level students, what I have given is the actual
experimentation. That requires more concentration and dedicated work for a longer
duration. I cannot get B.Tech students to
work beyond a set period of time. Currently, I also have quite a few mini-projects
with B.Tech students. We won’t publicize
anything! We are getting saturated now, and
there is a lot of activity going on.
Are there other faculty who are
involved with the CSD?
Yes, we have Prof. Pruthviraj from Applied
Mechanics, Prof. Vidya Shetty from Chemical Engineering, and Prof. Panduranga Vittal from Electrical Engineering. Now we are
getting more faculty associated with us from
Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engi-
Tell us
about the
Social Experiments
you perform on your students?
[laughs] I take classes for the two sections
- M1 and M2. I try something with M1 and
something else with M2, and see how the
reaction is, making an assumption that the
two sets of students are the same or similar. For example, in one class I will make an
announcement in advance regarding a test,
and in the other class I will conduct it as a
surprise test, and see if there is any difference. Of course, “announced test” means
only one day’s notice. Is there a difference?
I found that this did not make much of a
difference in the performance. I also tried
being very harsh with one class. In fact this
was Bevin Mathew’s class (2013 SC President). I would make harsh statements, “You