The E.

T
The Electronic Times

PHoEnix

The Phoenix Editorial Board is glad to release its first Newsletter of the academic year, The E.T. We would like to shower immense gratitude on the entire faculty of the ECE/EEE association for bearing with us and for providing the much needed, continual encouragement to dream and achieve something better than what was expected of us. We would also like to thank the entire team of The PHoEniX Office Bearers for co-operating with us. Without their help, releasing this newsletter wouldnt have been possible.

The Editorial Board

Shashank Chepuri; Sumanth Nepalli. Tarun Yadalam; Kitty Jain. Chandra Sekhar Reddy; Palak Jha
Editor
Shashank Chepuri

Design

Chandra sekhar Reddy

The Experts Voice

PHoEnix
by, Mr.Ananth Saradhi

I have been asked to write an article motivating students to develop interest in technical disciplines and project work. When I started to write, I remembered vividly, searching for an organization to do my final year project work. In the late 90s, there were very few organizations where an undergraduate student could work on projects and develop technical skills. I have learnt many technical skills the hard way, most of them during my masters at USF. I worked on projects involving different disciplines and such work enhanced my resume. I owe all my skills to the projects done at USF! However, times have changed and so has the job market. Learnability and independent thought are valuable skills. They are acquired only when a student does two things: develops interest in learning new knowledge and applies this learning by way of independent thinking. Project work is the best way to learn new things and apply independent thought. Project work in engineering is possible only when interest in the technical disciplines is developed and enhanced by constant discussion and follow-up reading, which is already being done in an informal setting. We need to keep at it and the results will follow. The most obvious advantage of project work: You understand what is taught and learnt in classrooms and laboratories very easily. A successful project can be converted into a publication. Project work shows you what works and what doesnt and this knowledge enhances the quality of publications produced. It enriches the student learning experience. Publications and project work do the talking for a candidate at any job interview, even management positions! They tell the interviewer something (good!) about you. As one of my friends pointed out, engineering managers need to be technically competent because they manage engineers! Technical competence is always an asset to a manager. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are a case in point. The concept of undertaking projects to enhance skills and thereby resume has already taken flight in our department and initial results are promising, to say the least. I hope this tradition grows to become second nature in all of us.

BPHCs First Ever Line Follower Event

Winner : Raghavender Sahdev, Sidharth Sahdev & Team 1 Runners up : V Abhilash 2nd Runners up : Sai Praveen & Team
st

PHoEnix Activities

PHoEnix
by, Keshav Parashar V Joint Secretary

Phoenix /fi:.nIks/ noun [C usually singular]: In ancient stories, an imaginary bird which set fire to itself every 500 years and was born again, rising from its ashes. During the freshers meet that happened in September this year, the juniors were asked if they knew what Phoenix stood for and none of them replied. Well, Phoenix, the ECE and EEE association actually is short for Perpetual Hankerers of Electronics. Quite a name youd think. The name aptly suited the association this year, more so because it was dormant for most part of the last two semesters and this time around it rose from its ashes, like the bright orange bird, fluttering its widespread wings and flying out with grand elegance. The whole association is proud of the fact that we could successfully hold two very interesting events and attract immense and very enthusiastic participation from students of all the three years. We have a very innovative and interested bunch of people at the helm, right from the president to the core members to the editorial board, whose constant efforts cannot be played down in any way. New and innovative ideas crop up in every meeting, be it regarding the events or the t-shirt or any random discussion to make the association more active. We had the first ever robotics event during Shangri La, a line follower event, Trace the Line which saw a good number of participants register. Interestingly enough, a first year team won the event by a comfortable margin and second place was taken by a third yearite. The place where the event happened depicted a scene of healthy and much needed technical competition for this nascent campus, where the students are still in a state of brain-storm. Lots of people also came down to just have a look at the event, which was a very encouraging sign both for the organizers and the participants. E-trade, another standard event from the Phoenix association, was held during Shangri La. This event received excellent participation as well; approximately 150 students took part and 8 teams made it to the final round. The first round was a written one where the students were tested on the basics of general electronics and electricity concepts. In the final round, the teams were given a variety of questions that tested both their knowledge and aptitude in the subject. Again, two teams from the first year were in the top three. Kudos to all the winners! The t-shirt which is soon to be launched is assuredly very impressive and will definitely grab your eyeballs. The association this year has already held few enormously successful events and would continue to relentlessly aim for better and bigger events and get wider crowds and more energetic participation from not only the ECE EEE students, but also from the other disciplines. The newsletter will be coming out every once in a short while to keep you engaged, informed and also, hopefully, entertained regarding all the happenings in the world of electronics both inside and outside this campus. Hope you have a good read!

E - Trade
3rd Yearites : Winners : Swamy IDLN, I S Vamsi, P Sanjay Runners up : G Venkatesh, D S Nisanth 1st & 2nd Yearites : Winners : Krishna Ghantasala & Team Runners up : Mohanish Vilas & Team

PHoEnix

The PHoEniX election

It took the contestants three weeks of healthy, albeit vigorous campaigning to be prepared to face the judgment day. In what is by some distance B.P.H.Cs biggest associations most prominent democratic exercise, ECE/EEE Association with 705 eligible members, were to elect their Office bearers in second week of October. The was held on 12th October 2011, as scheduled. Overall, turnout in the elections was projected at 57 percent of registered voters, about 7 percentage points higher than that of the last year. Amidst huge speculations the official results were released on eve of 15th October 2011. The results declared the names of the Elected Office bearers and the selected Core members, which included Nucleus members, Event Coordinators and The Editorial Board. The newly elected Office bearers had big shoes to fill.

Freshening Freshers Day

It was the 16th of September, the day when one of the major on-campus groups organized the freshers meet for the new batch of 2011. Just like other E.C.E/E.E.E students of the batch 2011, I was super excited about the Phoenix freshers meet. It was supposed to be our day to be entertained & to entertain. The freshers meet began with an inspiring introductory speech by Harish, the then President of the association. It was followed by the release of the splendid magazine of the group LIVEWIRE. The hard work put in by every member was completely visible throvugh the colours of the magvazine. The faculty members, Madhuri madam and Moorthy sir, were also present there to boost our energy to higher levels! But the fun was yet to come!!! After all the formal intros, we had some really cool stuff! Then was the time for us to show our skills! To show that we were no less than the seniors! The quiz organized, had an enthusiastic participation of the freshers. But what is freshers day without the declaration of the Prince and the Princess!!! Hence was the Mr & Ms fresher event organized. The newcomers were a little hesitant but in the end there was a decent participation. Every participant had to flaunt their talent and was then referred into the next round depending on how much he or she could convince the jury, which consisted of our seniors. After, three rounds of entertaining (and yes it was super entertaining!!!) selection procedures, we finally got our Mr & Ms Fresher, Mayank Goel and Priyanka. I thoroughly enjoyed each and every moment of this day. The seniors had left no stone unturned to make this day special for us. But every good thing comes to an end and so did this event. With lots of special memories

by, Shashank Chepuri.

by, Palak jha.

The list of The PHoEnix Office bearers for the academic year was declared as follows:

President : Secretary : Joint Secretary : Treasurer :

Sampath Krishna V Karthik Gadepalli Keshav Parashar Yoganageswara Rao Event Co-ordinators : A Balaram K Sumedha Acharya Nucleus Members : P Nikilesh
P Sai Praveen Veda Samhitha G A Pavan M Pavan kumar C Akshay kumar G Sameera sree deepthi V Sai haritha L Saikrishna P V Kalyan Geetha V

Editorial Board members : Check the cover page

PHoEnix

Dennis Ritchie:
The Shoulders Steve Jobs Stood On
The tributes to Dennis Ritchie wont match the river of praise that spilled out over the web after the death of Steve Jobs. But they ought to. Dennis was found dead on October 12th 2011, one week after the demise of Steve Jobs. Though the response from hardcore techies was immense, the collective eulogy from the web at large doesnt quite do justice to Ritchies sweeping influence on the modern world. Dennis Ritchie is the father of the C programming language, and with fellow Bell Labs researcher Ken Thompson, he used C to build UNIX, the operating system that so much of the world is built on including the Apple empire overseen by Steve Jobs. Ritchie was born on September 9, 1941, in Bronxvile, New York. Ritchie grew up in New Jersey, and after a childhood in which he did very well academically, he went on to attend Harvard University. There he studied science and graduated with a bachelors degree in physics. While he was still going to school, Ritchie happened to go to a lecture about how Harvards computer system, a Univac I, worked. He was fascinated by what he heard and wanted to find out more. Outside of his Harvard studies, Ritchie began to explore computers more thoroughly, and was especially interested in how they were programmed. While still at Harvard, Ritchie got a job working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He worked at MIT for many years helping develop, alongside other scientists, more advanced computer systems and software. Ritchie began working with Kenneth Thompson, who had joined Bell Labs in 1966. Both men had been watching how the minicomputer was becoming more and more popular in the early 1970s. What was needed, they thought, was a simpler and more feasable interaction between various computers. It took them months to come up with a solution, but when they were finished they had written the Unix operating system UNIX was written in machine language, which had a small vocabulary and did not deal well with multiple computers and their memories. So Ritchie combined some aspects of the older systems with aspects of the new one, and came up with the C programming language.

by, Sumanth Nepalli.

In the early twenty-first century, C is still the dominant language of computer programming. It was such a simple, concise language that almost every single computer maker at the time switched to it. By 1973 Ritchie and Thompson had re-written the Unix operating system, using C instead of machine language, and had done massive testing on it. It was so simple to use that programmers all over were switching to smaller machines to do their programming, giving up the larger computers they thought they would never want to leave. Bell Labs became Lucent Technologies Inc., and began to sell Unix to developers, creating a whole new division for the company. Ritchie has credited his success in part to the fact that he did not have a computer background and therefore had an open mind to possibilities that others might not have thought existed. Computer historian Paul E. Ceruzzi quoted:

The Fedora 16 Linux distribution, which was released about a month after he died, was dedicated in his memory.

Ritchie was under the radar. His name was not a household name at all, but . . . if you had a microscope and could look in a computer, youd see his work everywhere inside.

Source: Google images

PHoEnix

The Tablet Wars

by, Tarun Yadalam

In what are now being called, The Tablet Wars, the contenders (tabs) pit against each other to reach the top spot. So, for all the gizmo lovers out there, heres an article on 3 such contenders who are according to me the serious contenders for the throne: The mighty iPad from Apple and the bold Blackberry Playbook from Research In Motion

IPad 2
The top spot in this war is clearly taken by this mighty gadget whose predecessor has managed to sell profitably even during the recession. Now with a fresh, bolder and sleeker look, the iPad is back to steal hearts. Few pros and cons...

Blackberry Playbook
The newest addition to the race is this tiny yet super smart tablet. Even though its sister products are made for target corporate officials, this tablet has the capabilities which are unparalleled to please everyone.

Pros:
-Unquestionably the longest battery life in tablets. -iTunes provides a neat package of multimedia and applications. -iOS is reliable and robust. -About 500,000 applications available on iTunes. -Ease of use.

Pros:
-True multitasking rather than pausing applications in the background. -Dual core 1 GHz processor. -1080p video recording. -Micro HDMI port to play videos on external display. -Supports Adobe flash allowing flash content to be played. -Best Configuration of Camera

Cons:
-The cameras provided are not very effective. -Doesnt support flash content. -iTunes though offers a wide range of applications, is expensive. -No ports for connecting to external devices are available. (Can be connected using adapters) -Has only 512MB RAM. -Limited video formats supported.

Cons:
-Very few applications available in the market. -Blackberry OS is slightly cumbersome and expensive. -No extendible memory card slot. -Data plans are slightly higher than those for iTunes or Android.

Technical specifications:
-Runs on: Apple iOS 4.3(Upgradeable now to iOS 5.0) -Memory sizes available: 16GB, 32GB, 64GB -RAM: 512MB -Battery life: 9-10 hours -Dimensions: 241.2 x 185.7 x 8.8 mm -Weight: 607 g -Display: LED-backlit IPS TFT,capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors. 768 x 1024 pixels, 9.7 inches (~132 ppi pixel density).

Technical specifications:
-Runs on: BlackBerry Tablet OS -Memory sizes available: 16GB, 32GB, 64GB -RAM: 1GB -Battery life: 10hrs with continual use -Cameras: Primary: 5 MP, 2592x1944 pixels, autofocus Secondary: 3MP -Dimensions: 194 x 130 x 10 mm -Weight: 425gm -Display: TFT capacitive touch screen, 16M colors

PHoEnix

Do It Yourself - Automated Night Lamp

Aim: To make an automated night lamp that glows whenever light is turned OFF. Apparatus: A npn Transistor (BC548), Light Dependent Resistor, Potentiometer (100K), LED (RED),
2 Resistors (470Ohms and 10KOhms), a battery (+9V)

by, Sai Praveen

Procedure: Connect the components as shown in circuit on a bread board or a solder it on a PCB. Working: Lets not go deep into the working of a transistor. In the simplest terms a npn transistor acts like

a (water/gas) valve - a small current into the base is used to control how much of a much bigger current flows between the other two pins, just like the amount of water flowing out from the tap depends on opening of the tap. Here the valve of the tap can be compared to the base, the aperture of the tap can be compared to collector and the water flowing out is the current. Coming to LDR, the resistance decreases with increase in light intensity. Thus in darkness it acts as nearly insulator (resistance ~ 2MOhms) In the given circuit, the LDR is connected in series with pot forming a voltage divider and thus giving a voltage at point X inverse proportional to light intensity. In darkness because of its high resistance the LDR doesnt allow current through it, so the whole current goes through the base of the transistor turning it on. The amount of current can be controlled by changing the potentiometer and tuning it accordingly. The LED is connected to the emitter pin of BC548 transistor, i.e., output is connected to the LED. Tune the pot such that the LED is switched ON only when the lights are turned off. The Pic shows the circuit on a bread board and PCB comparing the size with a 1 Rupee Coin.

For the components or any doubts, please email to saipraveen92@gmail.com with subject as TheET - DIY

PHoEnix

CroSsWoRd
Down:
1) First transistor was invented in these labs. 2) A Unit of Data. 4) A Trans conductance amplifier when used directly. 6) A Diode. 7) Choke in a Tube light. 9) Reverse logic. 10) Electrically operated switch. 12) Topmost Node. 15) Irrational Indefinite Decimal

by S.P & Yogi

Across:
3) J.s.C-2 5) Currents in a transformer, Name of a cartoon character. 8) Most commonly used cathode ray tube. 11) Currents caused by mechanical stress. 13) The common name of a variable resistor. 14) A Temporary Storage. 16) Frequency dependent Circuit.

The correctly answered crossword can fetch u exciting gifts!!! So make haste in filling up the crossword and slip it into the room of any nucleus member on/before Dec 5th. P.S: You can send your feedback to bphc.phoenix@gmail.com You can also send in your Suggestions/articles for the next installment of The E.T. and Live wire to the same email ID.