The journey of getting crowned as the runners up of Hero Campus Challenge Season 6 -By Sarthak Sharma from VNIT Nagpur

Hero Campus Challenge stands out amongst the many corporate competitions conducted in India. As engineers, there are only a few competitions that allow us to work on real-world problems and show our technical expertise. Being a part of this challenge felt like a privilege to us.

Hero Campus Challenge Season 6 had numerous students participating from all over the country which elevated the level of the competition as the participating colleges were IITs, NITs and BITS.

The highlight of our journey

The moment our name was announced, I had goosebumps and I remember clearly how my parents were peeping into my laptop and my team members kept calling me. There was so much happening around me that it took me some time to comprehend everything. There was this strange feeling of completeness that took over as if all the sleepless nights had been rewarded and we had finally achieved something.

Preparing to leave an impact

We prepared by conducting extensive research on the topics. Be it primary or secondary, we made sure that we left no stone unturned for the preparation part. The unique part of our idea was that we made it into an ever-evolving idea and we saw it grow throughout the competition. The idea and its implementation took approximately 3 and a half months of deliberation and debate. 

The most challenging phase was to work on the final presentation for the finale and create a working prototype. Our idea was regarding sustainability so we wanted to paint a picture that the jury and the panel could actually relate to and we could leave an impact.

No journey is complete without the hurdles

The major challenge was to understand that all households have different timings. Some allow working late at night while some do not. Some have joint families and apart from anything, we have other responsibilities as well. To overcome that hurdle, we stuck to a very strict schedule and constantly motivated each other. We made sure that the work was well distributed and there was always a driving force as well. We took breaks as well and used to plan and talk about what we would do if we won Hero Campus Challenge Season 6 and that kind of motivated us. But even in these online sessions, we put amazing efforts and even pulled some online all-nighters.

No journey is complete without some memorable fights and conflicts. Ours was the time when we felt that our idea had hit a roadblock and it seemed that we would not win. Two of us literally stopped work for a day and began to lax and there was a small heated argument about the future of our idea. I remember motivating them and showing that nothing we had should go to waste and the thing that worked was that I encouraged them to talk to their parents about our idea and take feedback. When my team members saw and heard their reactions, there was a new zeal in them and yes, that's how we overcame it. In the end, we focused on the fact that all our paths will lead us to one destination. 

Arcane’s strong suit

The team's forte was that we stuck to our deadlines very religiously. I cannot remember one day when I was not working on our idea for Hero Campus Challenge Season 6. Regular work and deep study is what sets us apart. Elaborating on individual forte, Bhavin was the technical guy of the team assigned with the work of creating the prototype and writing the code. He ensured that all our technology was perfect and upto the mark. Sarthak was the vocals expert and the marketing and management guy. He was the face and the voice of our team and all the mentorships and QnA sessions were handled by him. 

Digvijay was the ideation expert and had plenty of ideas for implementation. He is the guy who literally read each and every article that was available on our idea. If you’ve got a task and data and you are searching for someone who can logically deduce conclusions, well, Digvijay is your guy! 

The opposition and the challenge 

There were 10 teams in the finals. We were competing against 5 teams of the E-track in the National Finale. I would rate Team 1Elite to be our toughest competitors from JSSATE, as they had a very comprehensive presentation and the way the jury was impressed with their idea was very encouraging for them.

Hero Campus Challenge Season 6 was an amazing journey for us. The judgement and quality were held to the highest of standards and I am impressed by the thorough scrutiny that was put into evaluation at all stages.

Lessons we learnt 

I have learned that anything is possible irrespective of the situation. There is no substitute for hard work and passion. If given enough time and importance, anything can be achieved and one can leave an impact on society. A special moment in our journey was the opportunity to be mentored by industry leaders and witness different perspectives towards the same problem.

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