Prashant Bhardwaj

Cambuzz

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• Team Size: 9

Headquartered in Vellore Institute of Technology Chennai, Cambuzz began as a side project and is now a tiny, bootstrapped idea helping the VIT Chennai family to share their events and is trying to become a go-to resource for discovering and connecting with everyone in the campus. Since the problems students faced in our campus were generic, we open sourced the platform to realize our vision of creating an equal playground in terms of opportunities and exposure.

Motivation

In our freshman year, we felt that we were at a disadvantage in terms of exposure compared to the premier colleges in India. We realised that lot of complications in the existing education system in India are a manifestation of one core problem: effective communication.

Process

Since we had literally no exposure to product building, we built Cambuzz solely on our instincts. Repeated user feedbacks helped in design iteration. All our team knew was:
Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough. - Mark Zuckerberg.
Our brainstorming sessions happened in night after classes and we used whiteboards to conceptualize our product. Insights from the discussion included bringing the feature set from 8 to 3, changing the project workflow even it meant changing our operating system (Goodbye Windows, Hello Linux!), and learning about each member’s strength and weaknesses.

Ultimately we designed down on 3 main features:

• Buzz: get to know about all the events happening in our campus.
• Track Teacher: searchable database of teacher’s details and probable free slot for interaction.
• Q/A Forum: ask questions, get answers and network with your peers in our campus.

Low Fidelity Prototyping

I didn’t even knew the process of making design related notes were actually called lo-fi prototyping! These were some of the notes we had made during the design ideation process:

Architecture

Webapp

Android

Marketing Posters

Conclusion

I felt that the system set an example to fellow students - by solving the first set of problems of increasing communication through the use of Internet-related technologies, we were able to show students that if “we could do it, you can too”, giving rise to multiple such entrepreneurial activities inside our college. After the initial success, people from other college started noticing and the more we spoke to our friends in other niche colleges, the more we felt that these problems are relevant and are not strictly limited to our own campus. So we open-sourced Cambuzz with the vision of starting a movement of networking and effective communication, without the friction of money and environment. One just needs motivation and little technical skills to deploy Cambuzz in their own university.

Imagine the outcome if every campus in India, (even in the poor areas) have one copy of Cambuzz which is connected to other nodes. A mesh of opportunities, exposure, skill-set and exchange of ideas will be on the rise. We will be able to tap into the very resources that generate the maximum revenue for any country: the youth and enrich them more so they stay in India and make in India. Concept validation: when student lacking brick and mortar schools become successful.

If I could do it over?

Reduce user friction: After the launch I realized the users found a lot of friction in even signing up. Since it was student run, our friends had notions like “Can the website be trusted with our privacy?”. User signups could have been much faster if we could have used Google or Facebook accounts for authentication.

Social Media Marketing: Consumer tech products breath through user generated content. Content being shared on social media is one such way to gather tremendous exposure and increasing word of mouth growth. I forgot to include a share feature in Cambuzz! People weren’t able to share their content outside, which led to isolation of content and minimal consumer reach.

Stop imagining all corner cases inside one room: I did conduct informal feedback sessions about Cambuzz. But I lacked breadth in terms of demographic since I had mostly interviewed students. Since the teachers also started taking interest, their insights were golden for Cambuzz.

Video Pitch

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Drone Swarming and Cloud Navigation System

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• Role: Full Stack Developer
• Comapany: R2 Robotronics Pvt. Ltd.

About R2 Robotronics Pvt. Ltd.

R2 is a startup in the tech space, specializing in the field of Drone (both Multi-rotor and Fixed-wing UAV) Navigation Systems. R2 also works in development of sector-specific enterprise applications, which can easily be integrated on the drone platforms to generate results on-the-fly. With there proprietary technology and ability to provide tailor-made solutions, flying drones for enterprises was never easier.

About the Product (DROSNAS)

Drone Swarm Navigation System (DROSNAS), is a first-of-its kind platform int he world which is meant for enterprise deployment of drone swarms, enabled by the use of Cloud Technology. It handles the flight of drones right from start-to-end, integrating with itself use-case specific applications. This platform is being developed keeping the era of IoT in mind, where Smart Drones will be the workhorse.
Some features are:

• Pilot-less flying
• Automated Flight monitoring, equipped with Failsafe systems
• Flight monitoring and supervision by the server and user
• Dual Autopilot system which ensures flight stability and navigation
• Integration with Google Maps
• Ability to handle multiple drone flights at the same time
• Equipped with D-TCAS, drone monitoring tool
• Open to integration

Work

Full stack developer, Php / Mysql, HTML5, AJAX · Worked with a team of engineers and MBAs for an early stage startup. Developed the entire software part for the drone swarm and cloud navigation system. Managed and designed the system architecture for data communication and server. The system is capable of handling multiple drones at a time from any part of the world through any device.

Test Flight Video

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Online Registration and Accounting System for College Fest. (Vibrance 2016)

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• Role: Full Stack Developer and Core Committee Lead.
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About Vibrance

VIT University, Chennai campus, is now building on the huge leap it took last year, by hosting the 2nd edition its national cultural festival, from 18th to 19th of March, 2016. Vibrance’15 saw an enthusiastic and overwhelming participation last year with a large number of students arriving from different parts of the country to take part. Vibrance’16 will be no exception and the number of participants is only expected to scale greater heights this time. This carnival will be filled with numerous activities such as dance battles, musical fiestas, etc; organized by the various schools of the University with the primary objective being - “to explore new talents and impart the qualities to the students”. The cultural extravaganza also comprises of sports events which is expected to thrill and create an atmosphere of fun and excitement to the participating students. This phenomenal event comprises of a new addition to it this year, The Pro-Show. Pro- Shows are a huge part of any cultural festival. We at the University promises its audience an atmosphere of immense pleasure and satisfaction leaving them wanting for more. In addition to the home crowd, an enormous number of participants from over 100 engineering colleges and many universities in and around Chennai and other parts of the country are expected to take part.

Work

The website and online accounting module for the cultural fest of VIT University, Chennai Campus. This is an event management system which was used in all the events and pro show ticket sale and registration. The admin side also contained an online accounting module which helped the accounts department, the event co coordinators and faculties to monitor and manage the total income, total participation and many such things with just a few clicks.

Full stack developer, Javascript, Php / Mysql, HTML5 · I have made the total front-end and back-end of this system from scratch. I went into the depths of PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, HTML 5 and CSS 3 and learnt many new aspects of these technologies.

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VIT Chennai Model United Nations Application, Selection, Management and Payment Portal

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• Role: Full Stack Developer and Technical Head
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About VITCMUN

One of the biggest MUNs in the country, providing young orators with a platform to compete, challenge and succeed. The Debate Society, VIT University, Chennai Campus, is a full-fledged society under the aegis of VIT University, which aims to promote the culture of debating on the campus and provides a platform to bring all the debaters together. The members meet up on a weekly basis and conduct debates with an aim of establishing a strong debating culture on campus. The society boasts of over 100 active members representing VIT University in various debating competitions across India, such as Parliamentary Debates, News Hour Debates and Model United Nations (MUN).

It started out as the VITC Debate Society in 2012. The club was formed by a group of debate enthusiasts. Due to the pioneering work of the founders, the club started to grow and is now a full-fledged society of the College. They aim to promote and establish a strong debating culture on campus and to win laurels in such competitions across the globe.

Work

The website for VIT Chennai Model United Nations and the online application for Members of the Executive board and delegates. The portal is capable of taking online payments which worked with the help of PayU Money. There are different kinds of admins in the admin side who have permissions according to their posts. The admin dashboard is used to accept or reject and applicaion and automatically send them a mail. The dashboard also kept the record of the total income and number of applications.

The system is based on HTML5, CSS, Bootstrap, JavaScript, PHP, MySqli. I have developed the entire system's architecture and the coded the whole the system all alone.

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Gapp

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• Role: Backend and IoT Developer
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• Download APK

About GAPP

A network of android applications which will bridge the gap between people and the daily traffic problems. It consists of three android applications, the first one is the user's application which consits of two sections.

The first section is Traffic Feed (Userbase: Drivers, Pedestrians, Passengers). Users can post anything related to city traffic on the feed in order to inform other about it, this will be visible to everyone. Users can add image and tags in their posts to make their posts more comprehensible. Sample content of feed can be accident alert, traffic jam, congestion alert, or general post.

The second section is Parking Finder (Drivers) Parking finder will show you nearby parking spots and the numbers of current free parking spots in the parking in real time. Real-time data is maintained by an IoT system and the second android application which I've built. This app will be used by the owner of the parking spot to put a display of the number of free spots of vehicles in the parking.

The IoT system consists of two devices one at the entry and other at the exit. The device at the entry consists of a Raspberry Pi connected to a LDR and a buzzer on one side and a Laser Pointer on the other side. Now the Raspberry Pi consists a Python script running in it which is connected to the Firebase database via the internet. The script is also keeping a check on the LDR's reading via the GPIO pins. As soon as the reading goes below 0.5, which means the Laser's connection is broken by a vehicle, the value of the free spots is subtracted by one and updated in the Firebase. Similarly, on the exit, the value is updated by adding one in it.

The third application is the Gapp Traffic Feed Control Panel application. This application is built for and used by the traffic police. They can see, update, delete or appreciate any feed or user according to its legitimacy. The appreciation consists of five points which is added in the account of that particular user. These points act as community points which can be redeemed in the form of chalan payment or any other government services. This whole process will make lives much easier, smarter and safer.

Work

I have built the IoT application and the API which will connect the whole network of applications. The system is based on Java for the Android part and I have used Python for the API.

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LAN Based Chat Application

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• Role: Full Stack Developer and System Architect
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• Sample Login Combo 1: Username: Australia Password: 3 Sample Login Combo 2: Username: France Password: 9

About the Application

The application is built on Web Sockets and Node JS. The frond end is based on Materialize CSS. This was deployed on a LAN network for the chit-passing in VIT Chennai Model United Nations. This is much similar to WhatsApp Webs except the file sharing option. MongoDb is being used for the database which is a No-Sql database. Currently I am working on making it work on an architecture-less network like Ad-Hoc wireless networks. The file sharing capacity is also under development.

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