ACM Orientation 2k15

ACM, engraving its roots deep inside NUST, hosted yet another splendid event on 12^th October 2015. The only SEECS society to hold an orientation for its general members. The best part? There were fun filled activities and food!

The orientation started with the recitation of Holy Quran at 1:00 PM in SEECS Seminar Hall where all the general members were seated. The host, Mana Tariq welcomed the members and started the not-so-formal ceremony. Faiza Faheem, General Secretary ACM Women Chapter was invited on stage and she explained the purpose of creation of the distinguished Women Chapter of ACM. She spoke freely about the need of women empowerment in our country.

Next up was the General Secretary Khawaja Usama Pervaiz. Welcomed by a round of applause, he gave a brief introduction of ACM and ASWAN. ASWAN is the part of ACM that works tirelessly towards social welfare and community service. ASWAN initiated the NUST Book Bank project which has helped hundreds of students get access to free books for a semester. In fact, this project is gaining momentum as more students are donating their old books increasing the circulation potential.

Umer Ahmed Mehtab, Vice President was next on stage called out by the crowd as the fun guy. He told the audience about many past events hosted by ACM such as the workshop seminar under the mighty Dr. Bebo White, the CS-Ed Week and the E-Gaming week. He livened up the situation showing photo collages of ACM activities and ACM team.

President ACM was invited on stage and he talked frankly, getting through to the general members. He encouraged participation in all rounds of events. He also appreciated the efforts of all general and executive members. He explained the working and hierarchy of the society while encouraging maximum people to take advantage of the opportunities that are laid ahead of them.

The fun part of the event began just after this, As Noor Nawab, Maryam Mehreen, Abeera Nazeer and Abdullah Afzal conducted some exciting games which included Act & React and People Bingo.

The games were a sure fast way to liven up the event, encourage the new members to participate and to help them feel comfortable in the new environment.

The audience was anxiously waiting for the promised food and refreshments for which proper arrangements were made. There was Pizza and an ACM customized cake. After the brunch, a photograph session of the new council was held which concluded the event.

Report By:

Saad Rafiq

ACM and ACM-W Welcomes the Batch of 2k15

This year, ACM and ACM-W kicked off their activities by organizing a very successful WOW event on Thursday, 10^th September, 2015. The theme for this year was none other than Lego – the building toys famous around the world. The grand event was marketed on social media with the genius tag line:

“LEGO of your fears;

Get in on the WOW cheers!”

The SEECS lobby was decorated with the ACM colours of blue and white. Registrations for General Membership were held from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm but the real fun was experienced from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm.

The main activities that were covered included:

• Nail Art – girls got their nails done and enhanced the beauty of their hands.
• Workout Challenge – this was the activity that attracted the boys of 2k15 the most, perhaps. They faced off against their friends in an epic workout challenge to prove that they could do more pushups.

• Charades – the classic activity which allowed the people to guess the movie their friend was acting out. Mess ups and impossible-to-act-out movie names surely made the activity fun!
• Sack Run – this was perhaps the most popular game. It was the source of laughs all around as people wore sacks and raced against each other while slipping and sliding and trying desperately to maintain their balance!
• Balloon pop relay – this was another popular activity. People raced to the finish line to pop a balloon without touching it with their hands. A lot of giggles were produced as people tried everything from sitting on the balloons to stepping on them with their feet!
• Photo booth – this year, staying true to the theme, the photo booth was decorated with the Lego design. Scores of friends posed for group pictures and many wanted solo pictures as well to keep as their new display pictures!
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The incentive for participating in the games was exclusive discounts and free pizza from Frankenstein Restaurant as well as free food vouchers from Tuscany Courtyard. Because after all, you can’t say no to delicious food!

Our sponsors helped us organize this successful event and they deserve a special mention. They were: 

• Frankenstein Restaurant – they were generous enough to bring pizza and offer exclusive student discounts of up to 40%!
•  ISIC – they set up their own desk and informed students about the benefits of applying for their own International Student Identity Cards including travel discounts and discounts on various goods.
• Tuscany Courtyard – food vouchers of this famous restaurant were given away as prizes to the participants of various activities.
• Codistan – 5 Tuscany Courtyard food vouchers on behalf of Codistan, the brilliantly successful startup, were up for grabs if people could achieve the high score in Fruitify, the addictive game, till Thursday.

All in all, it was surely a day that the batch of 2k15 will remember for years to come. The ACM and ACM-W Executive body had great fun in getting to know their juniors a bit better and we’re sure the juniors were fully entertained!

We wish the SEECS batch of 2k15 a great year ahead!

Report By:

Mariha Khan

C Workshop By ACM

On 12^th and 13^th of November, 2015 a highly interactive and helpful C Workshop was held by ACM’s own Muhammad Waseem Khan and Uzair Ghauri from BESE-3 who very kindly gave us some of his precious time in the Shirazi and Farabi Labs at SEECS UG Block.

The aim of the workshop was to help freshmen get a crash course sort of treatment for the fundamentals of procedural programming courses they are being taught in the semester. In the courses they study throughout the semester the main focus is the building of concepts that are the basis of core coding. The workshop intends to familiarize students with syntax and language constructs that are overlooked normally.

The great turnout was an indicator as to how much the help was appreciated. Students were open with asking questions and our instructors were quite helpful with the answers. Mr Waseem Khan being the Chair Person of ACM NUST Chapter did not hesitate to explain these special words we call code in the simplest of ways despite himself being in his final year of study in striving for a degree in Software Engineering. It was a pleasure to witness such an exchange of knowledge.

Uzair Ghauri began teaching with a very lecture-like approach by aid of very helpful presentation slides.

He explained different kinds of loops (for, while, do-while etc), selection statements and gave some tricks and tips to students to help them get these things on their fingertips. The students seemed a little overwhelmed with all the programming being sprung on them.  All this instilled nostalgia as to how we attended workshops like these in our first year.

Report By:

Dua Anjum

Fund Raising Event for Thar Victims by ACM and NCSC in collaboration with Sahara for Life Trust

       Abrar-ul-haq is known mostly as a singer among the people of Pakistan and abroad. Few people knows him as a social worker who runs his own charitable NGO named Sahara for life trust. Sahara trust was started in 2001 and so far it has grown its network all around the country in last one decade. His first project started in 2001 which was a medical hospital he started in the name of his mother “Sughra Shafi Medical Hospital”. It was completed in 2 years’ time providing people of Narowal free medical treatment and free ambulance service which was available 24 hours a day. The equipment used at the hospital is state-of-the-art and the same as the one used abroad. It has a capacity of 250 beds. It provided services such as Emergency unit, Trauma, ENT, Kidney and Gynae Center. Surgery, orthopedic, eye, X-ray departments, State-of-the-art CT scan machine, Neonatal nursery, ICU, CCU, Operation Theater, Ventilators, Defibrillator and Cardiac Monitors. In addition to these it also provides free treatment to deadly diseases such as TB, Psychiatry, Dengue and Cancer.

Sughra Shafi Medical Hospital

    Due to the success of Sahara Trust Abrar-ul-Haq got worldwide recognitions and acknowledgement. He won the following national awards because of his work:

1. Human Rights Excellence Award
2. Presidential Award
3. Sitara-e-eesar
4. Medal of Excellence (Tamga-e-imtiaz)
5. Human Rights Ambassador for OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference)

       Sahara For life Trust is a registered organization in USA, Canada and UK. Sahara Trust has provided medical facilities and aid to the victims of Earthquake in 2005 and 2013, and to the victims of floods in 2010 and 2013. Sahara has also built houses for the victims who were left homeless because of the flood and earthquakes.

Sahara is now working on its latest project of Sahara Medical College which costs around PKR 52 crore. This college will graduate 100 doctors per year to fulfill the need of doctors at Sughra Shafi Medical hospital and in Pakistan in general. The project is now heading to its completion. In parallel to this Sahara for Life Trust is also at Thar to help the victims who are dying of malnutrition.

     ACM-SEECS Chapter and NCSC had an opportunity for working in collaboration with Sahara for Life Trust. ACM-SEECS Chapter Student Council planned, managed and executed the fund raising event for Thar Victims in 1 week time. We raised PKR 100,000 in 3 days’ time. We made some strategy and planning and worked according to it. We decided that we will collect funds from the faculty offices, cafes, from different departments and from hostels. We assigned duties and divided the work. Our décor team designed donation boxes for funds raising. Those boxes helped us a lot as if was an official proof for what we were doing.

Presenting a cheque of Rs. 100,000/-

        After all the planning was completed we started collecting funds on Tuesday 25th March. We started from the Faculty block and managed to collect sufficient amount of funds from them. Then we went to cafes and lobby to collect money from the students. That evening we distributed the boxes to our representatives in the hostels to collect money. Boxes were given to the representatives in different departments and school.

         On the last day of our campaign i.e. 27th of March 2014, Chairman and founder of Sahara for life trust, Mr. Abrar-ul-Haq was invited to give a guest lecture on community service and about his work at Sahara Trust. Biggest Auditorium of NUST, i.e. Auditorium of CIPS with a capacity of 800 persons was booked for this special purpose. Volunteers from NCSC helped us to collect money during the ceremony. At the end of ceremony we handed over to him a cheque of PKR 100,000 which is to be used for Thar Victims to provide them with medication and food for those who are dying of lack of nutrition.

         Overall it was a biggest event ACM SEECS has organized in the last couple of years. We hope that the hard work which the student council has done will help the victims in Thar to bring smiles on their faces and this small amount which the students have donated from their heart will do some wonders at Thar.

ACM-SEECS Student Council with Abrar-ul-Haq

Album can be seen here.

Note: This Post was originally written by General Secretary of the council (Ahmed Ahsan Khan) for his own blog.

Robo-Wars

Who were present there?

1. Chief Guest: Dr. Raza Kazmi
2. Faculty Advisor: Dr. Sohail iqbal
3. President: Muhammad Bilal Khan
4. Vice President: Muhammad Sagheer
5. General Secretary: Ahmed Ahsan Khan
6. The executive council with all the participants.

Where did the event take place?

1. In Basic Electronics Lab- SEECS - NUST H-12
2. Table Tennis Court –SEECS - NUST H-12

When did the event take place?

1. From March 21st ,2014 to March 24th ,2014

Participants:
   Following are the names of the teams which participated in this event.

1. Dasti Boysez
2. XX Warriors
3. Fighters
4. Breaking Bad
5. Robot Revenge
6. Emenents ( From NUST EME)
7. Mad Missile
8. Robo Maniacs
9. Robo Holmes
10. Mustangs
11. Ba Dum tuzz
12. Godzilla

Why was the event scheduled?

       As we are living in the age of modern technology where every minute new inventions are surprising the mankind, so in order to cope the needs of understanding this advancement in technology ACM- SEECS Chapter arranged the event Robo Wars. Our Faculty Advisor Dr. Sohail Iqbal who is known for his specialization in Surgical Robotics, Mathematical Modeling, Fuzzy Controllers helped and motivated us a lot to organize such an event for the understanding of Mechatronics. His knowledge is truly admirable.

Details of the Event:
    The event was divided into three sub events.

1. Speed Racing
2. Slope Climbing
3. Sumo Wrestling

    The event started on Friday 21st of March when all the participants were provided with kits consisting of necessary tools to make their own robot. The event was scheduled as participants were given two days to build their robos and on the third day the battle began. The participants were given general instructions and were helped in making suitable designs for their Robots. The three battles between the robots took place on 24th March.

     So after the constant efforts of two days, finally every team was ready with their robots to compete. When the event posters were designed and publicity was done, there was a perception that probably some costume type of thing will be given for the sumo wrestling as if it was going to be the real sumo wrestling but then everyone realized that everything has to be done with the robots :D

Faculty Head explaining the use of robots

Speed Racing:

        The first event was the speed racing of the robots. All the teams were made to compete with another team on the basis of knockout system. This was fun as some robos behaved in a hilarious way. Due to some problem in programming, some robos were not able to follow the straight path and this resulted in collisions. Anyhow Dasti Boysez were the winners of Speed racing. They proved that their robo acted in a dasti manner.

Slope Climbing:

        After the speed racing, the event which took place was slope climbing, in which a kind of slope was set and robots had to climb the slope and reach a specific destination to ensure their entry in the next round. Again this was a knockout system and it was a great fun too. In this event a lot of cheers could be heard for the team “BREAKING BAD”, perhaps because of their unique name and excellent design of the robot for the slope climbing. And as a result of lot of cheers Breaking Bad won the Slope climbing competition.

Sumo Wrestling:

        This was the most awaited competition in the whole event which took place in the table tennis court where the robots had to fight in a sumo way :D As the competition started there was a hustle everywhere, people gathered and supported their robos. Interesting collisions among the robots could be seen and the comments like “Gale mill re hain” and “lgta hai 7 phere purre kr k rhen ge” added more fun. One of the interesting robo in this competition was “Ba Dum tuzz” because of its unique name. And yes it was the robo of my class fellow so I was like shouting Ba Dum tuzz again and again which was a lot funny. Anyhow, Ba Dum tuzz did not win the competition instead the team “Godzilla” impressed everyone. This was the team of EME students who were the students of Mechatronics Engineering and used their skills to make an excellent robot which helped them to win the competition.

Ending Cermony:

       After these three fabulous competitions, the ending ceremony took place in the SEECS Seminar Hall where Sayida Noor Fatima hosted the ceremony and certificates were given to the participants and the winning teams by the Chief Guest Dr. Raza Kazmi. In the ending ceremony some guys from EME also invited to the event NERC which was going to take place in EME.

       The ending ceremony was followed with the refreshment part which was no doubt the most amazing part, with hot samosas and tea in the rainy weather along with the sandwiches. So what happened was, I (Umer Ahmad Mehtab) was given the responsibility to take care of the refreshment part and I all the time sat near the samosas and to be honest ate a lot of samosas myself which was the mazzadaar memory. I know that I ate some samosas but in the whole hall every executive member along with the president were like coming to me again and again and saying Umer eat less samosas and all :D

        So in a nutshell, it was an amazing event of ACM SEECS Chapter and everyone enjoyed a lot. I was blessed with a lot of dps as well and still waiting for some of the pictures of mine by Sheraz bhai :p

One of the participating robot

Album can be viewed here.

Written by: Umer Ahmed

Adobe Photoshop Workshop

Who were present there?

1. Instructor: Muhammad Muneeb
2. President: Muhammad Bilal Khan
3. Executive Body:
4. Waseem Khan
5. Ghania Riaz
6. Durre Najaf
7. Umer Ahmad Mehtab
8. Anam Wajahat

Where did the event take place?

• In Ghazali Lab- SEECS - NUST H-12

When did the event take place?

• From February 24th ,2014 to February 28th ,2014
• 5 pm to 7pm

Why was the event scheduled?

      The event was scheduled to meet help the students get familiar with the concepts of Advance photo shop which is essential for graphic and web designing. So following were the objctives of this workshop:

1. Photoshop Environment Overview
2. Working with JPEGs
3. Working with Tools
4. Blending Composite Images
5. Working with Images
6. Applying Colors
7. Working with Layers
8. Working with Vector
9. Enhancing Images with Text and Special Effects
10. Creating Special Effects

Sir Muneeb while giving lecture

Overview

        The event was a great success and the lab was filled with passionate students each day who worked hard to develop their skills. In fact some students were requested to bring their own laptops because of such amazing response. There were almost 60 students on the first day and this number kept on increasing day by day.

      The whole event was very interactive and the participation of the students was highly appreciated. Our instructor, Muhammad Muneeb was the most interesting person in whole event who left no stone unturned in delivering the best concepts of the Advance photo shop and could be seen revolving here and there helping the students. His famous line “Koi maai ka laal bhi nai bata sakta k copy paste hai” was unique and perhaps the motto of the event because everyone could be seen repeating the very same line :D

      The event ended with the deliverance of certificates by the President of ACM SEECS Chapter and a kind of oath was taken from everyone not to misuse the skill.

Written By: Umer Mehtab

C/C++ Workshop

      Freshies and Programming same old story like every year :p Most of them come to university studying chemistry, physics and mathematics and then they are told the importance of “ ; ” :D All programmers can relate to this.

          So like every year freshies were thinking like programming :o ! What are they gonna do to fight this monster and ACM knew that a C workshop is a must for freshness or anyone else who is interested.

Event:

         The workshop was already there in our event calendar, dates were to be finalized and then seeing the availibity of resources like labs, instructors etc. and also facilitating students before their first one hourly test we choose 11th to 13th November, 2014 the appropriate date.The next thing was to find the right kind of instructors and this level it turns out to be fellow students always turns out to be the best and ACM SEECS chapter has always helped students in helping each other. So instructors were two final year students Nauman Imtiaz and Asadullah Ilyas. The help there was a teaching assistant as well named Taihami Tariq.

          The whole council worked hard for this event success but some who really worked were Bilal Khan (president), Anam Wajahat and Muhammad Waseem Khan. The venue was a lab in SEECS as it will be convenient for all.

Students taking the workshop

      The participants were mostly freshies, but there were other students also from other batches. The good thing was that there were also participants from other schools of NUST.

          The content of course were Basics of C/C++ programming covering data types, selection structures , loops , basic view of pointers and also covering basics about functions. The fdaily session was of 2 hours. Our instructors tried their best to convey knowledge to participants. The feedback we got from participants after the workshop was quite overwhelming and welcoming as most of them learnt a lot.

          The fee was only Rs 50 for non-members while the event was FREE for ACM members! All the attendees also got certificates.

           Like every time the event turned out to be a success and we were proud of our best. And we will continue to help freshies fight the monster of programming, when they tackle it the first time. 

Written By: Muhammad Waseem Khan

CSEd Week

Introduction:

      Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) is the major annual awareness program of the computing. CSEdWeek is a call to action to raise awareness about the importance of computer science education and its connection to careers in computing and other fields. It is held annually in recognition of the birthday of computing pioneer Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906). CSEdWeek 2013 is celebrated between 9-15th December.

      CSEdWeek aims to:

• Communicate the endless opportunities for which computer science education prepares students in higher education and careers;
• Provide information and activities for students, educators, parents, and corporations to advocate for computer science education at all levels;
• Eliminate misperceptions about computer science and computing careers. 

CSEd Week 2013

Events:

       Like last year ACM-SEECS celebrated CSEdWeek this year too with a lots of students participating in activities held during this week. Following events were held in CSED:-

1. Coffee with ACM
2. Code2Success
3. Hour of Code
4. Seminar on Augmented Reality
5. Closing 

Coffee With ACM:

      Coffee with ACM was aimed to test the participants’ general knowledge regarding

• Computer Science
• ACM
• Tech tools
• Tech brands/companies
• Tech movies

      It consisted of multiple choice questions, visuals which they had to identify within 20 seconds, writing a paragraph on the topic ‘Computer Science’. Coffee was arranged for all the organizers and participants at the end of the event by the SEECS tuc shop ‘Le Khokha’.

Code2Success:
        Code2Success was a programming competition in which each team were given 5 tasks within an hour. The tasks were divided according to the level of the students participating. e.g. final year students were given harder tasks as compared to the freshmen. Almost 20 teams in groups of two participated. Most of the students completed their task before the time ended. It was a good event though.

Student Coding in Code2Success

Hour of Code:

         Hour of Code was celebrated during this week on Wednesday. The students of university participated and developed apps for any device, python programming was also taught, SOS village children built small apps using online tutorials. About 60-70 people participated.

Seminar:

          ACM-SEECS arranged a seminar which most of students had been waiting for long in CSEdWeek. This seminar was conducted in association with Quadsource. It was on Augmented Reality using Unity3D and Kinect. Former members of ACM conducted this seminar.

Augmented Reality Seminar

Closing:

     After 4 days of pure computing competitions, seminars and teaching ACM-SEECS arranged a closing ceremony in which the winners of the competitions were given prizes. The remaining participants were given certificates. After that refreshment was served to all those who attended the ceremony.

Closing Ceremony

Written By: Noor Fatima.

Qualcomm Workshop

What is Qualcomm?      
     ACM SEECS chapter organized a workshop by Qualcomm. Qualcomm Incorporated is an American global semiconductor company that designs, manufactures and markets digital wireless telecommunications products and services. 

Logo of the company

Event:
     It was a one day workshop. The workshop was conducted by Mr. Adeel Khalid who is currently employed in Qualcomm. In the workshop he gave introduction of Vuforia platform, a product of Qualcomm Connected Experiences, Inc. It enables augmented reality (AR) app experiences that are best in class and creative beyond definition. Vuforia platform was used for Coding for Android app and new features were added to it after which the app was run in android. Most of the students made small apps using Vuforia and created virtual images on the mobile phones. 

Augmented Reality App

        Sir Muhammad Muddassir Malik was also there to attend this workshop. 20 to 25 students attended the workshop and all the participants were given certificates after the successful completion of the workshop.


Written By: Anam Wajahat

Peer to Peer Mentor Ship

What is Peer to Peer?     

     This is a program offered to all SEECS students to get help and help others in course work. People who need help tell us about the subjects they want to be taught along with the venue and time they can get extra help in. Similarly peers who can help give us the relevant info and then we manage all.

      There were two parts of the Peer to Peer mentorship program

1. Advertising the concept to all the students in SEECS
2. Arranging for both peers to coordinate

      Advertising was done through SEECS Mail. Data from all the peers was collected using google forms

Event:

        Peer to peer was quite a successful event throughout the year and is still going on. Most of the students had their concepts cleared. Many peer taught in library and hostels. Peers were assigned to each other based on what subjects they want to study/teach and their common choice of venue and time. The statistics of this event are as below:

1. Peers Teaching: 32
2. Peers Taught: 50 and counting

Written By: Noor Fatima

Short Course By Melanie Moller

Introduction

      Ms Melanie Moller visited SEECS. Ms Moller is an Executive Producer and Director, Sophrosyne Productions and Digital Media LTD. She is also a lecturer at De Montfort University, UK. She conducted workshops on human- machine communications in the digital age and mobile technologies, digital networking and social sharing.  

Workshop going on given by Ms Moller

Event

        During last summers, Ms Melanie Moller visited SEECS .It was a two day event, organized by the SEECS chapter of Association of Computer Machinery (ACM). During these workshops, first half was reserved to familiarize the attendees with the concept. Ms Moller strongly believed that it was essential that the participants get a hands-on experience as well. The second half of the workshop was dedicated to practical work. On the first day, attendees learnt to use the software used for modeling while on the following day they were given topics they had to research on and then give presentations.

         The participants found this event extremely informative and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Ms Moller giving seminar

Album can be viewed here.

Wriiten By: Farhaana Fatema