Deens Academy Route to Excellence
A report by Sebbin Joshy- Grade 10
The experience is one of the most interesting ones of our lives? Certainly
We went to the VIT campus by the double decker train with Nikhil sir.
The ride to Vellore took 3 hours and we reached there by 6PM.
We had kept our expectations a bit too high considering the fact that it was a south India level competition. We expected to stay in at least the hostel at VIT but we were provided with an open dormitory that had no security what so ever. The bags had to be left unattended if we were to go somewhere and the other participants were fighting with tooth and nail. Searching for other means for accommodation. After spending almost three hours searching we resorted to staying at a hotel close to the Vellore city, almost 8KM away from VIT.
The first day was very hectic. All the events started roughly around 1PM
The three of us had registered for Idea presentation as well as the quiz.
By the time we realized that the timings of both the events were clashing, we ran to the jury of the Idea presentation and told them about our situation. They let us go for the quiz first and promised us that we could present our idea at the end.
So we rushed to the venue for quiz and gave our best. It was an MCQ test and was very easy. After the quiz, we rushed back to the idea presentation. We still had a few minutes before we had to present so we prepared. At last it was our turn.
We presented our PPT perfectly but the judges long hours of watching PPTs had affected their judgment and they failed to see the potential of our idea.
At the end of the day once the results came out we felt disheartened. We had put our heart and soul into the PPT. Seeing our long faces, Nikhil Sir tried to cheer us up. He first took us to the outdoor stadium but we didn’t feel like playing anything. He then talked to some students and managed to get us into an automotive workshop where a group of students were building their very own race car, from scratch! Watching them work did the trick, we were back to normal, more over we were happy. Tired we went back to the hotel to spend the night. The next day we took our time and were having a heavy breakfast. We were under the impression that the second round of the quiz was supposed to happen at 1pm. At around 10am
Nikhil Sir got an unexpected call. It was from the judges of the quiz competition. The informed us that we had come first in the preliminary round and the finals were about to begin in another two minutes.
We quickly rushed to the auto stand. While seated in the auto the three of us were ecstatic that we came first while Nikhil sir was busy buying us time. He managed to get us five minutes. As soon as we reached the campus, the three of us ran to the venue as Sir paid the driver. The venue was half a kilometer in. Sai was the first one to reach the venue with me and Arjun close behind. Nikhil Sir reached as soon as the quiz started. After the first two rounds we were in the third position. The third round was an interesting one. In this round we could choose a subject from which the question was going to be asked as well as the number of points. If we answered the question right then we were awarded that many points else those points would be deducted. After the first question we came down from 25 points to 5. Towards the end of the round we had bagged all the physics question and had a total of 70 points with a lead of 10 points. The next round was the rapid fire round in which ten questions would be asked for which 1 point will be awarded for each question. Thus we realized that we had already won the quiz competition in the third round itself! After that we watched the 12 grade quiz competition and then the closing ceremony at which we received our certificate and th cash prize of 20,000 rupees.
After that we went straight to the hotel and relaxed. We ended up talking and cracking jokes in the hotel room. The next day our train was at 9:20AM and we reached Bangalore at 1:30PM.
This is one of the most comical competitions we have ever gone for, like something out of a Bollywood movie, and I’m pretty sure we will never forget this experience!