2013 - The Year of the Hamster

At the moment I'm sitting at the JRD Tata Memorial Library, reflecting on thoughts and experiences I had in the past year, compiling them, correlating them and inferring from them. This post should have come out yesterday, but got delayed because of a huge shopping list of RC parts that I had to purchase. I'd like to dedicate this blog post to Sherpas Vijender and Dinesh for saving my life in the snow clad mountains of the Himalayas, without whom I'd not be alive right now.

On the Bangalore - Mangalore Highway

2013 began most unusally. The midnight of 31st Dec 2012 was spent travelling from Hyderabad to Bangalore, with the cast removed. I received a Zaffiro Pro Home Trainer tire from Shreyas on 1st Jan. But it came to of no use, as I almost never used it. I began riding a bicycle in campus almost instantly, in spite of the warnings given by the surgeon. Luckily, nothing bad has happened till now! I applied for internet in my room on Jan 4th and later that evening I took one of the most crucial decisions of my life. I deleted my Facebook and Orkut profiles. I'll never be on a social network again! January was spent in the usual coursework, with two heavy courses to be handled.

Republic Day

February saw me being a part of a Hare Rama Hare Krishna group which headed out on a pilgrimage. I joined for the fun of it and liked the trip, especially the food! And the next weekend restarted biking with the customary Hessarghatta trip with Prof. Gadgil. Shailaja came over to Bangalore for my birthday and returned home to Mumbai with a concussion. Unusually, it was extremely hot in this month that I was bed-ridden with dehydration after a 100Km ride. Pretty much nothing else took place in this month!

Riding to Hessarghatta with Prof. Gadgil

With an ISKCON group

200K BRM medal

CNC in the making

March was the convocation month! I received my Masters in Engineering degree from Dr. V. K. Aatre, who was the ex-chief of DRDO and one of the foremost scientists in the nation. Dad came over for the event. Also, Arijit and I started making a CNC milling machine from scratch and got stuck due to regional politics in the Mechanical Dept. This didn't move ahead since. We narrowly missed a major conflict.

April was intense with coursework and assignments. Chandan's Topics in Algebra and Computation became too hectic and I lost all interest in that area. Topics in Algorithms was good and stimulating and I rate Neeldhara as one of the best teachers I had at IISc.

Vacuum tube

Bangalore Bicycle Championship

Rafting in the river Beas

At a gurudwara at Manikaran

May began with a deadly viva with Chandan Saha. It was probably the worst performance I ever did in a test. I lost all passion for that subject due to the way he taught. It so happened that I encountered most of those topics later and started getting a feel for them. The best example would be Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm, which was one of the greatest inventions in the past century. I happened to join a group heading for the Himalayas in May for a trekking expedition and successfully crossed Sar-Pass. A hell of a time!

Icy paradise at 15000 feet!

Chilling out in the mid-May heat

June began with Anchetty 200K BRM on the 1st day. I receed the route a week before but missed a short stretch, which I heard was completely downhill. On the actual BRM, I found this 'downhill' to be a highly rolling stretch with extremely bad roads. I had to drop the ride after approximately 140 Km and took a bus home. I found a kitten in my hostel, which became a good companion of mine. A very playful and friendly cat, she never dirtied my room and was always welcome. I even fed her Whiskas kitten food at times. I had a taste of how a 600K BRM would be, by sitting in a support car for the Ranebennur 600K on June 24th. I made my own bike headlights called Kick-Ass Light, with plans of production and marketing.

Gauribidanur 200K

Caught a guy cheating while on the 600K support car

My DIY headlights

The grueling climb to Yelagiri

Kitty cat trying to read my whiteboard

July began with the mammoth Yelagiri 400K on the 7th. I had to drop after about 300Km due to sleep and incessant bad roads. This is when I met Mrinal, who was to become a trusted riding buddy for a long time to come! A week later I planned my first multi-day tour with Hari DK and Suman, which ended up in disaster as Hari wasn't feeling good and we dropped at Hassan. I was at home the following two weeks, which is when I started thinking of a hamster.

Trying out a DIY accelerometer based digital pen

Using a badminton racket to do something with SONAR

Kitty cat under my bed

August brought me my first hamster. Archana took the existing three fish and we disposed the fish tank as it began leaking. The same day I got a Chinese Dwarf Hamster, called 'Furball'. He was pretty aggressive and had his own personality. Arijit liked him and took him and keeps him to this day. I bought a Syrian Hamster, also named Furball. This guy was very cute and docile. Actually too docile even for a Syrian. He simply wouldn't bite. And a little escape artist. I DIYed cages for him and he almost always found ways to get out. I did my last ride for the year in August. Rode from Bangalore to Ooty via Kalhatty and then took a loaded MTB all the way to Kaveri Sangam and back. I interacted with Suman Bandyopadhyay in the last 10 days of August and it was an extremely stimulating experience. He really showed me the beauty of mathematics.

At Ooty with Pradeep, Sreekar and Mrinal

At Kaveri Sangam

With Suman at CSA Conference Hall

The little escape artist

My first hamster!

September began with dreams of my own number cruncher. I built a little desktop out of a cheap uATX motherboard and a single core AMD Sempron. I had to sell my Rockrider 5.0 to get a 19 inch monitor for this setup. This was improved upon progressively and it ended up the monster it is right now. Dreams of my own desktop came from dreams of mining bitcoins and other such stuff. This awakened the long-dormant technology geek in me.

Cat saying 'Yeah what?'

My liquid cooled ATX cabinet

The new desktop! The show on the screen is Seinfeld

Angry hamster

October and November were thoroughly dedicated to improving my desktop and learning practically anything I could get my hands on. My desktop became a liquid cooled six-core monster running at nearly 5 GHz with a DIY-ed fan controller. I started believing in the motto 'If it's out there, it's meant to be understood'. Thus began the steepest learning curve ever in IISc. Also, Arijit, Gokul and I started hanging out a lot, resulting in loads and loads of discussions and hypotheses. I gave my perspective seminar in November and I now have a clue about what my PhD will be all about. The unthinkable happened on 22nd Nov, when Furball squeezed out of my room to explore without my notice. A cat caught him and took him away! I got a new Syrian hamster called 'Nibbles', who is a bit aggressive and not as exploratory as Furball. Nevertheless he is extremely playful if he is awake. Otherwise he simply bites if irritated. In a trip to Hessarghatta in the end of November, I came across people flying quadcopters. This started a long lost passion for flight in me.

Nibbles yawning in my chair's glass holder

Two sets of eyes

December is the month of the Quad. By the 10th of December I had the first quadcopter ready for flight. It was basically a custom-built frame with factory-built components. It ran into a tree in Jubilee park on the first flight and broke into pieces. I rebuilt the machine with a far sturdier and heavier frame and tested it on the runway. It did one textbook flight and the second flight ended up in mid-air disintegration due to vibrating screws. I decided to purchase a frame outright and develop my own controller. I spent the 31st of December roaming the roads of Bangalore, picking up stuff for the next generation of flying machines. I envision an autonomous intelligent quadcopter, capable of tracking objects and learning on its own.

First version of my quadcopter

Indian Airforce C-17 Globemaster III near HAL airport

Second version of my quadcopter raises a dust storm as it takes off.

2013 turned out to be a mix of all possible feelings and experiences. Dehydration due to heat in the winter months of early February and bone chilling minus 10 degrees celsius in May at 15000 feet. Starting the year with a trainer tire and ended it with a quadcopter. A leaky smelly aquarium that gave way to a cute and cuddly roommate. If there's something I became really good at, it is learning. The idea that 'something is undoable' has been completely phased out. I do not know how useful this will be for my academic career, but I definitely feel this is a positive change. A year after a miserable crash on an idle road, I now became very adept at navigating traffic and in weaving through it. Most people thought I'd give up cycling after breaking my arm. But, I ended up riding all night on Chennai highway, barely 8 months later!