Make a robot and set it racing on a tough track. Write a code for an online storm. Or just amp up your glam on the ramp.

Pantheon 2017, the three-day annual technical fest of Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Mesra, that begins on Friday with t2 of The Telegraph as one of its associates, promises contests to boggle some of the brightest young minds.

The theme of the fest is 'artificial intelligence', its social cause is 'combating depression' and social awareness campaign 'fight against thalassaemia'. About 1,700 participants from across the country and abroad have registered for the fest that includes technical contests at venue BIT-Mesra and online, lectures by academic and industry stalwarts from India and abroad, and fun stuff aplenty.

Of the 50 events to be held across three days, five are flagship, 35 formal and 10 informal.

The five flagship or hardcore technical events are Illuminati, Eureka, Droid Trooper, Codezilla and Cyberbridgeton.

Of these, Eureka is dedicated for schoolchildren in and around Ranchi who would create scientific models from scratch. The rest are for college students, where they would present mock papers in Illuminati, make robots to race on multi-terrain track in Droid Trooper, write codes in Codezilla and explore bridge designing and simulation in Cyberbridgeton.

The fest won't be all work and no play. There are 10 informal events like gaming competitions, quizzing, debating and even ramp-walking.

There will be guest lectures by well-known faculty members from prestigious educational and research institutions such as IITs in Delhi and Kanpur, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai, University of Pretoria in South Africa, IIM-Ranchi, and entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley.

About 200 students will stay at the venue, many will only attend lectures and many more take part in contests online from wherever they are based.

"Many of our competitions are online events with students from prestigious institutions from across the country and overseas taking part in them. They won't be physically present on our campus," said Samadrito Bose, a BITian who is a member of the media coordination team.