Activities

Workshops

In order to popularize Blender, Project OSCAR has been conducting workshops for a range of audiences.

Right from a one hour talk to make the students aware about the capabilities of Blender to a 4 day focused workshop for faculty members about modeling & animation. Following is a list of the past workshops conducted by Project OSCAR teams.

We now plan to conduct workshops using the video tutorials to maximize our reach. Thse tutorials are available under the Tutorials tab, which teah us the basic interface and navigation within Blender. From the review of students attending the workshop, we have analysed that, these tutorials are excellent self-explinatory teachers but only for explaining the user interface. Live sessions are mandatory to learn how to model, apply materials, textures, lights to that model, animate it or use it as a game asset.

Blender Workshop at Oriental College of Engineering, Bhopal, 2014

Venue: Oriental College of Engineering, Bhopal

Date : 22/08/2014, 23/08/2014 and 24/08/2014

Instructor(s) : Ajit Chiplunkar, Pooja Bhawar, Yashodeep Matange, Bipin Mishra and Ruchi Chaurasia

Summary: The workshop included modeling mesh, basic and advanced, from the available objects available with Blender. Students were taught to make them realistic by adding materials, textures and lights to their created models. They were also taught basics of animation and Blender Game Engine(BGE). Finally, they created basic games using BGE and ported those successfully on Android devices.

Blender Workshop at SCJET, Kerala, 2014

Venue: SCJET, Kerala

Date : 15/08/2014, 16/08/2014 and 17/08/2014

Instructor(s) : Ajit Chiplunkar, Pooja Bhawar, Yashodeep Matange, Bipin Mishra and Ruchi Chaurasia

Summary: The workshop included modeling mesh, basic and advanced, from the available objects available with Blender. Students were taught to make them realistic by adding materials, textures and lights to their created models. They were also taught basics of animation and Blender Game Engine(BGE). Finally, they created basic games using BGE and ported those successfully on Android devices.

Blender Workshop at Vidyalankar Institute of Technology, 2014

Venue: Vidyalankar Institute of Technology, Mumbai

Date : 15/03/2014, 16/03/2014, 22/03/2014 and 23/03/2014

Instructor(s) : Nitin Ayer, Pooja Bhawar and Yashodeep Matange (along with intern speakers)

Summary: The workshop included modeling mesh, basic and advanced, from the available objects available with Blender. Students were taught to make them realistic by adding materials, textures and lights to their created models. They were also taught basics of animation and Blender Game Engine(BGE). Finally, they created basic games using BGE and ported those successfully on Android devices.

Blender Workshop at DJ Sanghvi College of Engineering, 2014

Venue: DJ Sanghvi College Vile Parle,Mumbai

Date : 01/02/2014 to 03/02/2014

Instructor(s) : Ajit Chiplunkar, Nitin Ayer and Pooja Bhawar

Summary: The workshop included modeling mesh, basic and advanced, from the available objects available with Blender. Students were taught to make them realistic by adding materials, textures and lights to their created models. They were also taught basics of animation and Blender Game Engine(BGE). Finally, they created basic games using BGE and ported those successfully on Android devices.

Blender Workshop at DJ Sanghvi College of Engineering, 2013

Venue: DJ Sanghvi College Vile Parle,Mumbai

Date : 26/02/2013 and 27/03/2013

Instructor(s) : Sameer Sahasrabuddhe, Nitin Ayer, Sneha Deorukhkar and Arun Nair

Summary: The workshop included modeling mesh, basic and advanced, from the available objects available with Blender. Students were taught to make them realistic by adding materials, textures and lights to their created models. They were also taught basics of animation and Blender Game Engine(BGE).

Blender Workshop at IGNOU, Delhi

Venue: IGNOU, Delhi

Date : 11/12/2012 and 14/12/2012

Instructor(s) : Sameer Sahasrabuddhe, Nitin Ayer, Sneha Deorukhkar, Arun Nair and Pooja Bhawar

Summary: The workshop included modeling mesh, basic and advanced, from the available objects available with Blender. Students were taught to make them realistic by adding materials, textures and lights to their created models. They were also taught basics of animation and Blender Game Engine(BGE).

Blender Workshop at DJ Sanghvi College of Engineering, 2012

Venue: DJ Sanghvi College Vile Parle, Mumbai

Date : 05/10/2012 and 06/10/2012

Instructor(s) : Sameer Sahasrabuddhe, Nitin Ayer, Sneha Deorukhkar and Arun Nair

Summary: The workshop included modeling mesh, basic and advanced, from the available objects available with Blender. Students were taught to make them realistic by adding materials, textures and lights to their created models. They were also taught basics of animation and Blender Game Engine(BGE).

Blender Workshop at Don Bosco College of Engineering

Venue: Don Bosco College of Engineering

Date : 19/01/2012

Instructor(s) : Sameer Sahasrabudhe

Summary: To learn the Basics of 3D modeling and get acquainted with 3D space and objects in 3D which included mental rotation and visualization. In order to do so, participants were asked to do their own version of chess pawn model and bouncing ball animation.

Blender Workshop at DJ Sanghvi College of Engineering, 2011

Venue: DJ Sanghvi College Vile Parle,Mumbai

Date : 15/10/2011

Instructor(s) : Monisha Banerjee

Summary: Main goal was to present a basic process of greeting a 3D animation in Blender from scratch. The model was started with a standard cube in Blender. Main objective was to learn and explore. Basics of modeling and animation was taught.

Blender Workshop at PICT, Pune

Venue: PICT Pune

Date : 03/04/2010 to 08/04/2010

Instructor(s) : Kapil Kadam, Bhanu Prakash & Nitin Ayer

Projects

Final year B.Tech./M.Tech. Projects using Blender

Sr. No.	Project Title	Year	Project Team	Reports/Links
1	Ammonia Fountain Experiment For centuries teaching has been one of the most reputed professions. Throughout history teachers have used various methodologies, many have been glorified and many discarded. In the 21st century where computers are the norm, it has made its mark in the field of teaching as well. More so, Computer Graphics in particular has been a boon in developing educational tools. Our project is based on this ideology.In this project we plan to learn the Open Source 3D animation tool BLENDER 3D and use it to create 3D chemical laboratory experiment tutorials which can be used to aid the professors for teaching students, enabling them to understand the working of the experiment better. Guide: Prof.Sridhar Iyer Mr. Sameer Sahasrabuddhe (IIT Bombay) & Prof. Abhijit Joshi (DJ Sanghavi COE)	2008	Gokul Menon, Priyam Mukhopadhyay & Karan Mulchandani	Report Video Link
2	The Anatomy of an Open Source 3D Interactive Content Creator Abstract and Project to be uploaded soon	2009	Chirag Raman, Hiral Mehta & Shobhit Beltangdy	Report
3	3D Content Development using Blender We develop a suite of softwares that allows 3D Content from Blender to be published onto the web. The primary goal of these systems is to satisfy the needs of E-Learning; the increased proliferation of the internet into remote areas of the world brings with it the promise of easier access to education and other resources. Free e-learning softwares are currently hampered by their inability to accommodate interactive, 3D content. We address this urgent need by developing portable, small, and easy to use applications and plugins that allow Blender projects to be exported to a custom format which can then be rendered by any web browser. We shall release this project under open-source license. Guide: Prof. Sridhar Iyer (IIT Bombay)	2010	Sunny Goyal	Report
4	Creating 3D Interactive Interface For Building E-Learning Animations Given a bunch of 3D models available there are options available in the free software domain to create interactive animations at run time. Unity and Blender Game Engine are two game engines available for free to create such an interactive interface. This project covers building an interactive interface to create 3D animations. It includes a demonstration of building simple electrical circuits through the interface. Finally a comparison between the two game engines in context with this project is elaborated. The project is a part of OSCAR project an initiative by the Indian Institute of Technology,Bombay sponsored by the Ministry of Human Resource Development(MHRD). The main purpose of the OSCAR project is to develop an online repository of animations for E-Learning. Animations help in better understanding of science. However these animations are pre-configured experiments and they curb the students inquiring ability. It would be helpful for students if they could set up their own experiments with a given bunch of instruments and see their own handiwork. This project aims thus aims to give hands on experience to students. Guide: Prof. Sridhar Iyer (IIT Bombay)	2010	Ravikant Narayan	Report
5	Adding Interactivity to E-Learning Through Gesture Recognition The aim of this project is to enhance interactivity for e-learning animation in open source by adding a real world input by enabling the users to interact with the virtual world in ways more native to their cognition.The set of features to be added include real-time response to parameters. The user can currently manipulate the objects' orientation. This project aims at allowing the user to input a parameter such as temperature and viewing the system respond in real time. Further into interactive learning, we can enhance the user experience by making a more immersive and natural environment wherein the user need not use the keyboard and mouse, but body movements and gestures. For example, teaching rural people who have no prior knowledge of a computer can be easily done. Also, having 3 Dimensional virtual world gives a more complete understanding as compared to the 2 Dimensional view of a text book or slide show. This project aims at giving e-learning a more immersive and natural environment by rendering the keyboard and mouse redundant. This unique feature is helpful in imparting knowledge and understanding can be achieved with more ease, hence facilitating a fundamental step, which is, education. Guide: Prof. Sridhar Iyer, Mr. Sameer Sahasrabuddhe (IIT Bombay) & Prof. Kishore Kinage (DJ Sanghavi COE)	2011	Sahil Bakshi Paulomi Sanghvi & Priyanka Shah	Report
6	Adding Interactivity to E-Learning Through Gesture Recognition (with accelerometer) The aim of this project is to enhance interactivity for e-learning animation in open source by adding a real world input by enabling the users to interact with the virtual world and making the entire process user friendly. An entire experiment is animated and the user interacts with this virtual laboratory by merely moving his/her hand. Thus, the user holds an object which can be made to emulate a particular object on screen. The movement of the object on screen is the replication of the movement of the object the user holds. Further into interactive learning, we can enhance the usage by the environment reacting in real time. For example, teaching rural people who have no prior knowledge of a computer can be easily done. An ideal laboratory is thus created by using merely, a computer. This will open the doors to education in remote places where infrastructure is not enough to build huge laboratories. The virtual world is created using the open source multimedia software, Blender. The set of features to be added include real-time response to parameters, and dynamic model loading. We are using an Arduino microcontroller which is an Open source microcontroller. Since Blender is Open source multimedia software which runs on the python script for creating 3D objects and has a good software development kit, it can be connected to microcontrollers and be controlled by them. Guide: Prof. Sridhar Iyer, Mr. Sameer Sahasrabuddhe (IIT Bombay) & Prof. Aruna Gawde (DJ Sanghavi COE)	2011	Parin Jogani, Anuja Shah & Nikita Sule	Report
7	Gesture Recognition for Education 'Gesture Recognition for Education' is a research project, under Project OSCAR at IIT Bombay. The current system of education is not as interactive as it can be. It lacks participatory learning from the student point of view. The future of learning is visual and interactive. Keeping this in mind, the primary goal of this project is to interface 3D animation software and gesture recognition hardware to create an interactive learning environment. Blender is an Open Source 3D animation tool, which can be used for the modelling and animation aspects. Microsoft Kinect can be used for capturing real time gestures of users. In this paper we present a method for manipulating Blender models using Kinect. This Human-Computer Interaction method can be used to make various learning tools to make teaching more visual, animated and lively rather than mere reading from the theory. The subject that we have targeted is Mathematics. So we developed MathMazing. It is a single player, gesture controlled mathematical maze. The player needs to guide the figure along the path leading to the correct answer. The figure moves along when relevant gestures are provided by the user through Kinect. This game will in turn improve the users Logic, Kinesthetic and Spatial skills. The target audience for this game is primary school kids. The final outcome is an application which can be distributed in an exe format to the schools who wish to use them. We believe that this form of education will support participatory learning. Guide: Prof. Abhijit Joshi, Prof. Neha Mendjoge (DJ Sanghavi COE) & Prof. Sridhar Iyer Mr Sameer Sahasrabudhe (IIT Bombay)	2012	Adeet Shah, Mohini Thakkar & Varun	Report Video Link
8	Interactive Circuits Using Augmented Reality Physics is considered as one of the most difficult subject to understand. The concepts are difficult to grasp unless done practically. Our project "Interactive circuits using Augmented Reality" is a research project under Project Oscar at IIT-B, which helps students to practically perform the experiments involving different electrical components such as battery, bulb, voltmeter, resistor, switch, and ammeter in Augmented Reality. Due to lack in availability of electrical components, students cannot really experiment more with the circuits. In case of increasing the voltage it might lead to a shock or may cause damage to the electrical components. Performing the experiments in Augmented Reality, students can change the parameter, for e.g. students can change the value of resistance as well as increase the voltage of the battery in real time. This would enable students to perform experiments as they wish and moreover it ensures physical safety and promotes reusability. However the most challenging task would be to interconnect the electrical components in Augmented Reality, such as, battery, voltmeter, bulb, etc. Guide:Dr. Abhijit Joshi & Miss. Sherrin Benjamin (DJ Sanghavi COE)	2012	Roma Dave Rikin Desai & Ronak Mehta	Report

Other Activities

Apart from the workshops and projects, our team is engaged with some other activities as well. These are basically the talks (majorly with respect to Blender), learning new open source tools, participating in National as well as International conferences, attending workshops at IIT Bombay, to enhance our knowledge, etc.

Sessions on "Basic principles of Animation"