Sindri, March 6: Students of Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, and NIT-Durgapur proved their technical acumen by finishing joint first in the national quiz, titled Scientica, which was organised here on the concluding day of Sandhan 2K11, the two-day annual fest of BIT-Sindri.

The winners, had to fend off stiff competition from other institutes, including Sri Satya Sai Institute of Science and Technogy of Bhopal, BC Roy Engineering College of Durgapur, and NIT-Jamshedpur, in a number of rounds like multiple choice, rapid fire, audio visual, et al, to come out on top.

A number of other events like Robotics, a robot competition, Nirvitry, a technical paper presentation, an air show and a sand animation show, also had crowds spellbound.

The Mr and Ms Engineer contest was the cynosure of attraction among the techies, with more than 4,000 students from the institute making a beeline to participate.

“Contestants for the competition were selected after a series of tests,” said Uday Prakash, a third-year civil engineering student of the institute.

Seventy-five students who made the cut after the written round were further subjected to another test where the numbers were filtered down to 18. These students were then divided in groups of three for the contest,” said Uday Prakash, president of Model Club and a third year civil engineering student of the institute.