The CMRIT Way

Assignment writing is considered to be one of the most mundane activities in engineering education. Often blamed for consuming most of the student’s free time, this activity has lost its charm and purpose. The assignments are supposed to stimulate creativity, while helping students practice problems with the intention of scoring well in exams. The questions are ideally a mix of important questions from past examinations with a few challenging ones thrown in here and there. Ideally, a faculty should design a set of questions for each student to test their understanding of the subject and the concepts, and students should answer and submit the problem sets with care, interest and dedication. However, unfortunately assignments have become more of a routine formality and do not serve the purpose for which they were intended.

We do not believe in this routine exercise at CMRIT and believe that every activity should spark a certain level of imagination and creativity amongst students.

Here’s what happens when creativity is clubbed with a purpose like assignment writing.

Enough said, let’s look at the assignments done by the 1st year students who are currently studying engineering chemistry.

Students’ ‘Creative’ Assignments

The Wedding Invitation – Charita G Rao
This assignment features a wedding invitation, a pirate map, and an eggshell. Charita has expressed methanol-oxygen fuel cell depicting the key concepts and functioning in the form of bride and bridegroom names, reception, parent’s names etc. Similar way, the pirate map and the eggshell contain answers for other questions in the assignment and she scored 50/50 in internals.

Ask the Battery Man!!! – Pavithra

This assignment features a battery man, whom you can ask answers. Pavithra created a battery man with eyes, tie, pocket where question numbers are cross linked with their answers .She scored 49/50 in internals and applied for an IEEE student project with the course instructor. According to the course instructor, she is a soft spoken, shy, rural student and this project showed the potential of a rural girl student of Karnataka.

The Compact Disc Assignment – Vinay Kumar, Pranav Bhat
This assignment features a set of circular discs which provide a quick overview of the key concepts of the chapter. The top disc can be rotated to find answers for any topic in the chapter and from this project a student team is formed to develop a business project for developing similar quick study discs for all subjects in all branches of engineering and then extend to competitive exams too. A sub-team is focusing on developing an android platform for the same purpose .These students scored 49/50 & 48/50 in internals.

Answer my Fish – Mohan Babu
This assignment features answer fishes. Each fish is put with two folds and the inner fold contains the answers. The student had to figure out a way to enclose all the key concepts in a small space ensuring that an answer fits into the small paper. As expected by the course instructor, this student named Mohan Babu scored 50/50 in internals.

ATM Slips #Miniature Assignment – Rohin Sarkar
This assignment features answers on ATM slips collected in the hostel. The student is a University level Table Tennis player and his ability to score points with minimal effort is reflected here. This student scored 50/50 in internals.

The Colour Code Assignment – Anushree
This assignment features many of the key points of the assignment written in different colours emphasizing the level of importance. A traditional assignment serving the purpose of ‘revision of the topic’, combines with key goal of concept learning. This girl scored 49.5/50 in internals.

The College Degree – Sujana M
This assignment was written before the creative assignment idea was floated in the class and the student named Sujana has taken the time to decorate it with the concept of a degree certificate. The student missed two weeks of classes due to Dengue fever, yet scored 48/50.

The 3D Assignment – Asher John
This assignment is written on ‘Post It’ and features full answers for each question. The real takeaways are written on a different coloured ‘post it’. The student scored 47/50 in internals.

The ‘Wear On’ Assignment – Pradhan Gowda
This student came and informed the instructor that his assignment was not ‘ironed’. Surprised & puzzled, the instructor found out that student has written assignment on his T-shirt. The student scored 49/50 in the internal.

Maharaja Memo – Sravani
This assignment features in the form of a ‘Maharaja Memo’ and the student differentiated herself from others in the way it was constructed. Student scored 38/50 in internals.

Coloured Disks – Krishna Priya
This assignment features multiple circular coloured disks, which imply for questions, answers, equations etc. The student scored 44/50 in internals.

The Door of Answers – Nidhi J Lal
This assignment is the concept of a door and on the door question is written, and answer is written inside. The student scored 49/50 in internals.

The Sail Boat – Pavan Kumar
This assignment is in the form of a boat and the student has demonstrated ability to adjust diagrams, equations and theory to fit the edges. The student has scored 47/50 in internals.

Tissue Paper Assignment -Vineeth
This assignment features on tissue paper, showcasing the applications related to each topic in diagram form. The student named Vineeth has improved ‘leaps and bounds’ in fundamentals of chemistry.  Student scored 39/50 in internals.

Chemistry – C Language Bond – Akhilesh & Sayak
These two students have written the chemistry assignment as ‘C’ program with ‘C’ language commands. They scored 49/50 and 50/50 in internals.

The Speaking Clouds – Rakshitha
Student has written assignment in the form of clouds and the answers were fit as per the structure and shape of the clouds, ensuring she understood the answer completely and has the logic to use key points “which one where”.  She scored 49/50 in internals.

Assignment with wings – Akansha
This assignment features a paper bird that contains the answer to the assignment questions written on the bird’s wings, beak and as well as the eyes .The answers have been fit according to the shape of the bird. The student secured 43/50 in her internals.

The Folder Assignment – Shreya Hulekal
The basic structure of this assignment is a computer folder that contains all the answers. Each folder encloses a particular question of the assignment .This student is part of the IEEE student project. She scored 49/50 in internals.

The Colourful Reminders – J Deepa
This assignment is a traditional way with the addition of many brightly coloured discs with emphasis on key concepts. The student has made the revision process for students easier by using these bright coloured additions. She scored 50/50 in internals.

Faculty’s Observations

1. The biggest drawback of assignment writing: students find it easy to copy from each other and submit the work of others as their own. This needs to be addressed.
2. We need to develop a competitive spirit amongst students and push them to learn the concepts for themselves, by innovating & writing their own work.
3. Creativity is individual-centric. Often an industry needs solutions that are not just innovative but simple, easy to manufacture and field deployable. These assignments reflect that these students can be good engineers
4. When asked by the students to choose the most creative amongst the ones submitted, the faculty replied that innovation is always an expression and other’s opinion is immaterial. Every student put in their best efforts to create something ‘out of the box’ and it is indeed impressive and everyone was given a home-made chocolate!
5. All this aside, one student submitted an “invisible” assignment – He had the written assignment as one normally would and when he realized that everyone had submitted something innovative, he seized the opportunity to exhibit his creativity and humour by submitting a blank paper!

1st Year Students, Engineering Chemistry