Mission Briefs
Upcoming Events & Workshops
Slashdot Meet and Greet (Batch of '26)
ErrInternetDisconnected Try: Talking to people offline or connecting with fellow tech and design enthusiasts at the upcoming Slashdot Meet and Greet event! We're thrilled to announce our upcoming event — the Slashdot Meet and Greet. This is your chance to connect, share ideas, and foster collaboration. We will introduce you to our present Office Bearers (OBs), some of our previous OBs, and other members of the Club. Whether you're a seasoned techie or just starting your journey, this event is your gateway to an ever-welcoming tech community. Expect engaging conversations, fun activities, and a sneak peek into our upcoming projects and initiatives. Event Details Venue: Ashima Chatterjee Seminar Hall, TRC 2nd Floor Time: 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM F.A.Qs Do you need to bring your laptop? No, you don't need a laptop for the Meet and Greet. I don't know much about technology or designing, especially coding or aesthetics. Can I join? Absolutely, Slashdot is for everyone.
Slashdot Merchandise Design Competition
Slashdot invited all creative geniuses to participate in the official Merchandise Design Competition. Whether working solo or in a duo, participants were challenged to let their creativity run wild and help design the club's official swag! The Challenge & Guidelines Participants from IISER Kolkata were tasked with designing a minimum of one T-Shirt/Hoodie (both front and back). The rules were strict to ensure fairness and quality: Originality First: No AI-generated designs were accepted, and strict plagiarism scrutiny was enforced. Branding: Designers had the freedom to tweak the Slashdot branding, but the official IISERK branding was strictly prohibited from being included. Submission Formats: High-quality editable files (such as .af, .ai, or .psd) packed into a zip file were required. Judging Criteria & Prize Pool The competition featured a grand prize pool of 7,000 INR. Submissions were scored out of 50 points based on the following criteria (10 points each): 1. Originality in Design 2. Print Feasibility 3. Relevance to the Club 4. Typography 5. Versatility in Design Note: Participants could also earn up to 10 bonus points for submitting extra swag designs alongside their clothing designs, such as stickers, laptop sleeves, keychains, or desk mats. Competition Timeline Contest Open: 20 June 2026 Original Deadline: 15 July 2026 Extended Submission Deadline: 20 July 2026 Audience Choice Poll Deadline: 11 August 2026 Winners Announced: 13 August 2026 For full details on competition copyright policies, please refer to the "Circulation PDF for Merch Design.pdf" distributed during the event. 🏆 The Winners' Circle After a thorough evaluation by the Core Committee and an enthusiastic public poll, the brilliant minds behind the legendary new merchandise have been selected: 1st Place: Afreen Chowdhury 2nd Place: Pratham B Sarma 3rd Place: Arya Basak Audience Choice Winner: Swarali Shingne Congratulations to our winners! All winners received their respective cash prizes and a set of merchandise featuring their very own designs.
Inter-Batch Website Development Competition 2026
SlashDot invited students across all batches of IISER Kolkata to participate in the Inter-Batch Website Development Competition 2026. The initiative served as a blueprint for the future of SlashDot, allowing the most innovative design elements, architectural patterns, and user experiences from the winning entries to be integrated into the Official SlashDot Website. Competition Guidelines As outlined in the Inter-Batch Website Development Competition Guidelines.pdf, participants were encouraged to build creative, technically sound websites that demonstrated thoughtful design, structured code, and innovative ideas. Hosting & Technology: All projects were publicly hosted on GitHub and required a live deployment using GitHub Pages. There were no restrictions on technology stacks, allowing developers to utilize any modern framework. Mandatory Requirements: Websites had to include specific sections (Homepage, About/Concept, Tech Stack, Team, and Contact) alongside correct integration of the IISER Kolkata and SlashDot logos. Engineering Standards: The competition emphasized open-source development, reproducibility, and good engineering practices. If a project required backend services, clear setup instructions (like Docker/Podman configurations or automated scripts) were mandated. Evaluation & "The Production Standard" The objective was to evaluate entries not just as student projects, but as production-ready codebases. As detailed in the Jury Evaluation Guide.pdf, the judging panel prioritized engineering over prompting, seeking to reward original logic and clean, maintainable code over unedited AI-generated boilerplate. Projects were scored out of 100 points based on a strict rubric: Technical Quality & Engineering (30 pts): Evaluated bespoke components, custom logic, semantic HTML5, and modular script organization. Mobile-First Design & UI/UX (25 pts): Tested for seamless transitions across desktop and touchscreens without layout breaks. Maintainability & Documentation (20 pts): Rewarded content scalability (e.g., storing data in separate JSON/Markdown files rather than hard-coding) and professional Developer Guides. Concept & Mandatory Content (15 pts): Measured the completeness of mandatory pages and how well the website communicated the vision of the SlashDot club. Innovation & Performance (10 pts): Focused on fast loading speeds, optimized asset usage, and the implementation of unique technologies. 🏆 The Winners' Circle After multiple deadline extensions and meticulous reviews by internal judge Dr. Dwaipayan Roy and external judge Anindo Neel Dutta, the final results were announced: 1st Place / Overall Champions: Anuprovo Debnath (23MS) 2nd Place: Sankhadeep Bera (25MS) 3rd Place: Youktik Sajjan (22MS) Special Category Awards Audience Choice Award (Determined by highest public voting): Liyam Kamra and Anuprovo Debnath (Tie) Critics Choice Award (Awarded for exceptional technical architecture and innovation): Sankhadeep Bera In the spirit of open-source and fair play, the full evaluation metrics, jury guides, and detailed score sheets with judge feedback have been made publicly available via the resource links above.
Student Talks: Git Workshop
As the SlashDot tenure for 2025-26 comes to a close, we are hosting a series of Discussion Sessions led by our nominated Office Bearer candidates. Join us for the final session of the series, a hands-on Git Workshop focusing on version control. Event Details Speaker: Md Shayan Bari (25MS) Venue: LHC G05 Time: 9:00 PM Prerequisites Please bring your fully charged laptops for this session. If you are on Windows, kindly run the following command on an elevated (Admin) Command Prompt to install Git before arriving: winget install --id Git.Git -e --source winget We encourage everyone to attend and help us choose the best candidates for the next tenure!
Student Talks: What Python Hides from You
As the SlashDot tenure for 2025-26 comes to a close, we are hosting a series of Discussion Sessions led by our nominated Office Bearer candidates. Join us for the third session of the series, What Python Hides from You, where we will explore the underlying mechanics and secrets of the Python programming language. Event Details Speaker: Afreen Chowdhury (25MS) Venue: LHC G05 Time: 9:00 PM We encourage everyone to attend and help us choose the best candidates for the next tenure!
Student Talks: Lean: Bridge to Uncertainty
As the SlashDot tenure for 2025-26 comes to a close, we are hosting a series of Discussion Sessions led by our nominated Office Bearer candidates. Join us for the second session of the series, Lean: Bridge to Uncertainty, featuring a foundational introduction to the Lean Theorem Prover. Event Details Speaker: Alok Jha (25MS) Venue: LHC G05 Time: 9:00 PM We encourage everyone to attend and help us choose the best candidates for the next tenure!
Student Talks: Introduction to Game Development
As the SlashDot tenure for 2025-26 comes to a close, we are hosting a series of Discussion Sessions led by our nominated Office Bearer candidates. Join us for the first session of the series, Introduction to Game Development, where we dive into the fundamentals of building games. Event Details Speaker: Sankhadeep Bera (25MS) Venue: LHC G05 Time: 9:00 PM We encourage everyone to attend and help us choose the best candidates for the next tenure!
LaTeX Workshop 2026
We are presenting a workshop on LaTeX, the premier typesetting software used worldwide for mathematical, physics, and general research papers. LaTeX is an essential tool for creating professional manuscripts, reports, and presentations that require precise mathematical formatting and automated bibliography management. Whether you are currently drafting a research paper or preparing for your end-of-semester reports, this workshop will provide the practical skills needed to streamline your writing process. What You'll Learn Installation of necessary packages and basic syntax. Fundamentals of document structure. Preparation of complex equations and the integration of figures and tables. Moving beyond standard word processors to produce high-quality, academic-standard documents. Event Details Speaker: Eklavya Raman (24MS - A Math Nerd) Venue: CC1, Academic Building Time: 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM Prerequisites Please make an Overleaf account before arriving, as the workshop will cover using LaTeX in Overleaf. Note: Everyone is welcome to join, even if you don't own a personal laptop!
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