Rules

1. There will be 20 questions in the prelims.
2. Questions 4,8,12,16,20 will be starred questions worth 2 points each.
3. All other questions are worth 1 point each.
4. All blanks are indicative.
5. Top 6 teams will qualify to the finals.
6. In case of a tie, the number of starred questions answered will be taken into consideration.
7. In case, a tie still persists, a preliminary tie-breaker round will also take place on-stage before the finals.
8. Only 1 teams from a school can enter the finals.

Question 1

According to historians, the lamp was made during the reign of His Highness Sree Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma the then Maharajah of Travancore. It was installed on the request of Udarashiromani Padmanabha Rao in memory of his father T Rama Rao (who was a former Diwan of Travancore). Though there is not enough proof, some say that the lamp was lit using kerosene in the past.
This lamp now stands in front of a prominent Protestant church in the city. The church is known for its Hallenkirche (hal church) style building made using granite with a square bell tower with a vestible beneath and a roof supported by gothic arches.
What is the lamp called and where have you seen this before?

Question 2

In 2008, company _____ had caught one of its employees leaking information and selling it to news outlets. When asked on twitter how they did it, The CEO of the company told the media that the seemingly identical emails sent to employees were encoded with binary in order to catch the employee. Identify the CEO of the company. (Blanks are indicative) Note: We want you to write the full name of the CEO of the company.

Question 3

The United States viewed the People's Republic of China as an aggressor nation and enforced an economic containment policy including an embargo on the PRC, following its entry into the Korean War in 1950. After approximately twenty years of neither diplomatic nor economic relations, both countries finally saw an advantage in opening up to each other, through a certain event to be held in Nagoya, Japan in 1971. Thus, a certain term was coined to describe the type of relationship between the 2 countries, which was facilitated through a particular channel

Question 4 ⭐

X (born 31 May 1964) to Malayali parents in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. After finishing his master’s at the Illinois Institute of Technology, he was handpicked by Vinod Dham to work at Intel where he was part of the team that designed the i486 processor.
After returning to India, he founded Jupiter Capital which bought a very famous media company ‘Y’ from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. In 2024, he stood for the Lok Sabha Elections in the constituency where Y’s headquarters was located but unfortunately lost.
Who is X and in which constituency did he stand for election? Which company (Y) does he own?

Question 5

The photo given below shows a Welsh developer and the initial name of the game he developed which he later changed to X. The game eventually blew up in popularity with ‘X’ being the most searched term globally in 2022. Over 300,000 people played X on January 2, 2022, up from 90 players on November 1, 2021. In 2023, X was played more than 4.8 billion times.
On January 31, 2022 the developer sold the game to a publicly traded News Company.

Question 6

The original song dates back to the 20th century, potentially created by camp counsellors inspired by the movie Jaws.
A dance version was popularized in German “Kleiner Hai” published by Alexandra Muller (known as Alemuel). This version is set to the theme of Jaws. The single peaked at 25th in the German charts and at 21st in the Austrian charts. The German version of the song remains popular among German youth groups, and multiple variations in different German dialects have been published.
What are we talking about?

Question 7

Jerome Alan West (popularly known as Jerry West) was an American Basketball player and executive. He played professionally for the Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA. As a player, he won the 1972 NBA Championship, was the 1969 NBA Finals MVP, was 14 time NBA all star and much more. He was also a part of the 1960 gold medal winning Olympic team.
As an executive he won the NBA championship 8 times with the Los Angeles Lakers, the Memphis Grizzlies and the Golden State Warriors.
In 1969, one of his photos by Wen Roberts was used to create something that is now an iconic spectacle.
What are we talking about?

Question 8 ⭐

Kochouseph Chittilappilly was born in Parappur, Thrissur in the erstwhile State of Travancore-Cochin in 1950. His career kickstarted in 1973 at Telics, a Thiruvananthapuram based electronics company manufacturing voltage stabilizers and emergency lamps.
In 1977 with an initial capital of 1 lakh and two employees he started off with the manufacturing of voltage stabilizers - X . His wife is the founder of a subsidiary that manufactures inner wear - Y. Another subsidiary, Z manages entertainment attractions in Kochi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Bhubaneshwar.
What is X, Y and Z.

Question 9

‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ is an American television comedy of manners created by Larry David that aired on HBO from October 15, 2000 to April 7, 2024. David stars as a fictionalized version of himself and it follows his life as a semi-retired television writer and producer in Los Angeles.
Some part of the series was directed by X which effectively lead to a series of videos on the internet of ‘fail videos’.
What famous meme are we talking about?

Question 10

In 1987, a band was formed in Aberdeen, Washington. Its success popularized alternative rock, and they were often referenced as the figurehead band of Generation ‘X’. A deodorant (now sold by Colgate-Palmolive) became famous after the band’s lead singer accidentally named their most famous song after the deodorant.
The group went through several names, including Skid Row, Pen Cap Chew and Ted Ed Fred before settling for a word that references to ‘a transcendent state in which there is neither suffering, desire nor sense of self…”
Which band are we talking about?

Question 11

One of the earliest uses of a throbber occurred in the NCSA Mosaic, which featured an animated NCSA logo. It is an essential component of most applications, website and other forms of software.
Most of these throbbers were known as ‘spinning wheels’ which typically consist of 8, 10 or 12 part-radial lines of discs arranged in a circle.
What are we talking about here which is one of the many things people hate about using Windows.

Question 12 ⭐

Connect to a world famous personality.
We want you to Identify the person and his most famous role. (2 parts)

Question 13

On June 19, 2024 ‘Just Stop Oil’ protesters damaged a prehistoric megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England. The monument, constructed in several phases from around 3100 to 1600 BC is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice and sunset on the winter solstice.
It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around 13 feet high, 7 feet wide and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free standing trilithons, two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel.
What are we talking about?

Question 14

Aaron Hillel Swartz was an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political organizer and Internet hacktivist. As a programmer, Swartz helped developed RSS, the technical architecture ‘Creative Commons’ and Markdown.
He was a very famous Internet pirate. On January 6, 2011, Swartz was arrested by MIT police for trying to steal expensive academic data from MIT servers and making them public domain. Two days after the prosecution, Swartz was found dead and became a martyr for the freedom of information.
On similar notes, he was member of the team that developed Y - a platform that people use to get information, opinions, etc and many of the questions have been inspired (not copied) from here ;)
What is Y?

Question 15

The Seine is a 777 kilometre long river in Europe. The name Seine comes from Gaullish ‘Sequana’ which refers to the Celtic Gallo-Roman goddess of the river, as offerings for her were found at the source of the river.
Over the years, the river has been heavily polluted due to urbanisation and industrialisation of the surrounding regions. However, in 2024 there has been a renewed interest in the water quality of the river. Why?

Question 16 ⭐

When Omega SA, the scoreboard manufacturer, asked before the organizers whether four digits would be necessary and it was told that a score of the format ‘xx.xx’ was impossible.
This was however proved wrong by a 14 year old girl from Romania and caused a very peculiar altercation (shown in the image).
What was the problem and what was the occasion?

Question 17

In 1976, Mattel’s CEO Ray Wagner declined a deal to produce a toy line of action figures from the Star Wars universe, due to $750,000 license fees. This dealt a huge blow to their market share.
In the race to design the next popular action figure, Roger Sweet, the lead designer realized that simplicity was the key to success. He ‘glued’ a ‘Big Jim’ figure into a battle action pose, added clay to its body and had plaster casts made. This prototype would later go on to become X, which was probably named so to attract boys to the toy line.
X got his power by raising his sword and proclaiming, “By the power of Grayskull….” Once the transformation was complete, he would continue, “... I have the power!”.

Question 18

Dabbala Rajagopal “Raj” Reddy is an Indian-American computer scientist who is one of the early pioneers of artificial intelligence. He is the founding director of multiple world famous institutions like the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute and the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad.
To this day, he is the only Indian to have been awarded this specific award.
This award commemorates a legend in the field who was misunderstood due to the stigma regarding his sexual orientation that caused the world to lose a genius who has influenced almost everything in our daily life today from Artificial Intelligence to CAPTCHA.
After which famous scientist whose birthday falls on June 23 is this award named?

Question 19

X is a game released back in 2011 that allows players to explore their imagination in a fictional world with no specific goals to accomplish and allows players to live their life in it.
The in-game time system follows a day and night schedule with one day lasting about 20 minutes.
The game was initially titled “Cave Game” however the creator decided to change the name to something more fitting and came up with a simple combination of the game’s two mechanics.
What is X?

Question 20 ⭐

X, a Croatian innovator and entrepreneur recently took charge of the company Y (which was a merger of an automobile giant and his startup).
The company released a new car recently that was developed using a Cosworth naturally aspirated V16 engine coupled with the world’s best electric drivetrain. However the entire dashboard of the car is made of analog parts with little to no digital elements. This marked a first for the company which has always made gas guzzling cars.
Identify the company Y and the new CEO X. (Surnames are also accepted.)