Bosco  PSI- PHI 2009

INAUGURATION

The Bosco Psi-Phi has, in just a few years of its existence, has become one of the most anticipated and coveted events of the school. Nearly thirty schools from various parts of the capital took part in this year’s inter-school Psi-Phi competition, which primarily focuses on bringing out the budding scientist in each one of us. The inaugural ceremony, held on the 30th of July, started with the Head Boy Gifty Kurian addressing the congregation.Gifty's speech was a veritable construct of scientific excellence, and then our Cultural Captain Prassana Balakrishnan took over. They told us about the significance of the term “Psi-Phi” and how important a role science and mathematics play in our lives. It was soon followed by some ostensive and comical enactments of great scientists like Newton and Benjamin Franklin.

After this, Mashhood Alam and Swetabh presented to us an ingenious skit aptly named- “A blast from the past”, in which Swetabh had invited a host of the greatest of scientists like Einstein, Pascal and Joules to a bash he had thrown at his home. Mashhood questioned him on how each one of the scientists enjoyed the party. His witty and crooked questions and Swetabh’s tongue-in-cheek humour set this skit apart. They wanted to tell us that there is an Archimedes; an Einstein in each one of us. These great men were born in ordinary families with humble backgrounds. They could make it big in life because they were able to observe the trivial nature of things and were able to let the power of reasoning overwhelm their senses.

Now it was time for our chief guest- Ms. Sukanya Dutta to deliver a speech to the assemblage. An editor of Science Reporter- and an erudite and inspiring speaker. with her enlivening voice, she told us that being a scientist doesn’t mean that one has to have a different dress sense, mentality, or approach towards life. She said that scientists are like the average human but with one exception- they had the skill to persistently pursue the childhood goals they had created. She said that we should never let the ability to let our dreams fade over time, because this is what broadens our imagination and inspires us to mould our destiny. Her invigorating speech energised everyone present there, as all watched her in absolute awe. Father Binny was then requested to come up to the stage and declare the Bosco Psi-Phi ’09 open, a task he did with a graceful ebullience. The end of the ceremony was met with a huge applause from the students, which reverberated throughout the auditorium.

NIHAL MEHTA 10 A

       THE GENIUS IN EACH OF US     

Forget everything you think you know about genes, talent, and intelligence. The concepts of IQ and "giftedness" are obsolete. Science now tells us that talent is not a thing, but a process. Human intelligence is not scarce like fossil fuel, but potentially plentiful like wind power. Don Bosco’s majestic Mashhood and the suave Swetabh came together in a harmonic progression at the Psi-Phi inauguration.

For a dialogue between two Class 12 Science students-this was the stuff of inventive ingenuity. Imagine a party in which the greatest of scientists like Einstein and Pascal and Edison and Joules all come together.

This historic amalgamation happened on Swetabh’s terrace and Mashhood was quizzing him.`What about Watt?’ said Mashhood twice as Swetabh kept asking him to become clearer.He was reerring to James Watt who supplied power to the party.

A deceptively simple dialogue trysted with the periodic table, Pascal’s pressure and a host of other principles. As Mashhood signed off in scientific temper and said: Each one us can be an Avogadro,’the auditorium burst into delighted claps. We were witness to the genius
of two students who applied their knowledge of science to give us a witty and wry dialogue that lit up into a thousand insights.

Mashhood set us thinking about the role of amateurs in a life surrounded by science. In today’s hi-tech world an amateur is full of wonder and speculation, tinkering towards the truth but suffering from a lack of knowledge and idleness; he's not even sure if someone else has already made these discoveries. "Is this a worthwhile pursuit?"

A scientist performs experiments to confirm or disprove a hypothesis, and in that way he grinds out the truth.Mashhood stirred the scientists within us. All of them were humble people but it is their course of work that defined them as geniuses. I went away
thinking…..what does a genius have?

A genius has three abilities, which are actually the union of amateur
and scientist:
1. To know the state of the art, what is known and what is not known.
2. To be able to think "out of the box".
3. To be disciplined enough to concentrate on the tedium of a formal investigation of his wondrous speculations.

This morning’s skit was an example of the kinetics of scientific speculation. Brilliant Bosconians……loved it…what a lesson in learning !

Uma Ma'am

EUREKA WINNER AMOGH SOOD REPORTS:


The student’s council escorted all the participants of the Eureka Quiz to the venue of the first preliminary round-The Physics Lab. The question papers were given out, we had 40 minutes to answer 50 questions. I could see the tension building up on my teammate Bharat’s face, so in order to lighten the mood I occasionally cracked a few jokes.

With eighty per cent of the questions answered correctly and couple of guesses, we finished the paper well before time. We handed over our papers 40 minutes later and proceeded towards the canteen for refreshments. When we returned to the auditorium we were informed by that our score, with 38 correct answers, was the highest out of the twelve teams short listed.

The second preliminary was held in the AV room. We were already on top of the world but unfortunately didn’t stay there long enough. Scoring a Zero in the first two segments of the preliminary round was a kick in the teeth for us. I. However, the third segment turned out to be different. It was the picture identification round. A picture had been covered with four boxes and we were given a clue to start with. A correct answer without removing any boxes would fetch us 30 points whereas we would loose 5 precious points for every box we removed. We answered the question correctly after removing a box, earning us 25 points. But we again ran out of luck in the 4th round.

We had fifteen seconds to name the first satellite to orbit the moon in 2000. Both of us gave Mohd Zeeshan Ashraf, the quiz master blank looks. And in return he gave us the ‘I will kill you if you don’t answer this’ stare. My teammate Bharat made a wild guess, “The Aryabhatta,” he answered. I shut my eyes and braced my self for impact as Zeeshan declared, “Wrong answer.” That’s it, we had hit the bottom. There was absolutely no chance we were going to make it to the finals. But contrary to what we had thought, the 5th round-The Rapid Fire turned out to be a lifesaver. By answering 3 out of 6 questions we earned 30 points. With our total score at 55 points we were 4th out of the six teams which qualified for the next round. I went back home disappointed and yet undeterred and determined to top the charts in the finals the next day.



Eureka Finals

31st st July, was ‘Judgment day.’ Each and every Bosconian’s hopes rested on our shoulders. It was indeed a great responsibility representing your school. We were accountable for the failure or success of our school in this prestigious inter-school event. My teammate and I both had our feet firmly on the ground after yesterday’s episode, our eyes open to the fact that we were up against some serious competition.

We headed straight to the auditorium and took our seats on the stage.Once everyone was seated ,the quiz began with the ‘Warm up Round.’ It turned out to be quite a rewarding round, for all the teams (excluding ours) were able to open their account.

But we didn’t feel bad, for in the next round we were able to score, a (-5) though. My teammate was seething with rage, but for good reason, after all we went into negative because of a folly I committed. The next round was more gratifying for we earned 15 points for a correct answer, bringing our total to 10 points. Though we were way behind the other teams we were happy for we had finally opened our account. But alas! We were unable to carry the ten points for I earned our team another (-10) in the following round. I gazed at the aghast faces in the audience.

My teammate Bharat was completely devastated. My heart was pulsating abnormally fast. I tried to keep my cool but nothing seemed to work. I knew too well that we were ‘going to bite the dust’. But then again God seemed to be on our side because of some strange twist of fate, the tables turned. We began scoring in the fourth round and no mortal soul could impede our winning streak. I earned my team 30 points and my teammate another 25. By the 6th round we were tied with Sanskriti International School for 1st st place. The 7th th round-The Rapid Fire, again turned out to be a God send.

The quiz master Ujjwal Sen very aptly put it, “This round can make or break you.” Unfortunately, it broke Sanskriti International School but definitely made us. 6 out of 10 questions were answered-it rocketed our score to a whooping 115. Amity International, NOIDA and Sardar Patel were tied at 110 after the rapid fire. After a long and lackluster tie breaker, Amity International emerged runner-ups and Sardar Patel achieved 3rd place. The auditorium echoed with thunderous claps and booming cheers as Quizmaster Prasanna Balakrishnan declared Don Bosco the Winners of the Eureka Quiz. It was the best quiz of my life.


Amogh Sood
8 B

SIGMA FINALS:

“There is no permanent place for ugly mathematics... It may be very hard to define mathematical beuty but that is just as true as beauty of any kind. We may not know quite what we mean by a beautiful poem – but that does not prevent us from recognising one when we read it.”

The Word Mathematics brings to our mind various algebraic rules, trigonometric identities, topics like calculus and so on. But Math is not just what is confined in the pages of our books; the world of math extends to infinity. A Mathematical Quiz brings us closer to this World, it is a different experience as one gets to know various interesting facts about The World of Math through a quiz.

Keeping all of this in mind, SIGMA’s prime role is to increase interest and knowledge in mathematics. The participants from the host school, Don Bosco, were Tonmay Sarkar(10 C) and Saransh Nanda (10 C). A number of schools participated, but only 6 Teams reached the finals of The SIGMA after clearing 2 challenging prelims. These were Apeejay School Saket, D.P.S. R.K. Puram, Bluebells International, St. Micheal’s School, Amity International School Noida and Tagore International School.

The Quiz was divided into 7 rounds. Classes 9 and 10 were the spectators. And thus the quiz began. First was a warm up round in which teams were each asked a question related to general mathematics. Only St. Micheals was successful in scoring in this round.

The Persona Round followed, in which each team was given a picture of a mathematician who had to be identified, and a clue. Then was the Round named “Who Am I?” Tricky questions regarding various geometrical figures were asked and the teams had to identify them based on the hints given to them. The fourth round was “Guess Who”. In this round the picture of the mathematician was covered by four boxes. Removal of each box meant a decrease in the amount of points that would be awarded for a correct answer. Next was “Complete the Incomplete”. In this, incomplete formulae were given which had to be completed by the teams. ‘Mix and Match’ was the sixth round. In this, pictures of mathematicians were shown to the teams and they had to identify them. By the end of this round D.P.S. and Apeejay were tying for first position. The competition grew interesting.
The Final Round was the Pi Round. As the name suggests the round had invigorating questions related to the constant Pi (p).

This tough but engaging contest finally ended with the announcing of the results. Apeejay stood victorious at first position, with DPS at second and Bluebells at third. The event was well organised. The Participants as well as the spectators learnt a lot from it.

Honey Narang
12 A