BUET Brainiacs hosts Potterbrawl 2019

On February 16, 2019, Brainiacs club from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) hosted their second instalment of Potterbrawl. The daylong event comprised of all things Harry Potter, with three main contests and a fan art exhibition. The program kicked off at 2 PM with around 250 participants from various institutions gathered at the BUET Auditorium Complex.

TEAM QUIZ

This round consisted of 80 teams of three with three rounds in total. The first round was the written round where all the participants answered questions regarding the Harry Potter universe. From here, eight teams qualified to the buzzer round where the teams battled it out to get to the top four. The top four teams then had to represent one of the four houses that were picked for them by the 'sorting hat'. The house with the maximum number of points won the 'House Cup'.

This year, the winners were team Rectificus Totalus with members, Ayan Antik Khan, Najibul Haque Sarker and Ramisa Alam who are first year CSE students from BUET. The first runners-up were team Snape Cute Kodur Tel Makhe, with members Samiha Alam Mayesha, Lamia Tasneem and Maliha Ferdaws, while the second runners-up were team Potterhead with members Noushin Siddique Adrita, Samiha Mohi Queens, Nourin Siddique Ananna.

FAN FICTION WRITING CONTEST

In this segment, each contestant was given a prompt, using which he/she had to write a fan fiction within 30 minutes. Around 50 Harry Potter enthusiasts participated in this section, among whom, Farhan Hamid took home the winning title while, Rokaiya Siddika Oshin won the title of the runner-up.

FAN ART EXHIBITION

About 20 participants took part in this with their Happy Potter inspired sketches and paintings. The artworks were submitted on the day of the event, and by the end of the evening, five amateur artists were awarded. Muhaimina Sultana Miva was crowned the champion with first and second runners-up being Shafqat Amin Inan and Rokaiya Siddika Oshin respectively.

There was also a Meme Contest, where participants had to upload an original Harry Potter meme on Facebook. The memes were then ranked based on the number of likes and shares they received and judges' scores. The winner from this round was Samiun Fateeha who is studying at Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmad Medical College in Gazipur.

Team Diagon Alley Biriyani House won the prize for the Name Game (Team with the most interesting name), while the 'House Cup' was received by Gryffindor with teams Rectificus Totalus and Team Quizmentors of Azkaban.

We spoke with one of the organisers and member of BUET Brainiacs, Nafis Mustakin Niloy, who told us the reasons behind organising this competition. He said, "Our club aims to encourage quiz enthusiasts. We know that Harry Potter is a popular pop-culture subject so we knew we will have a lot of interested participants. This year we had people of all ages and educational backgrounds taking part in the competitions, which is always wonderful to see."

The club hopes to keep organising more events like these in the years to come to cater to all the bright young minds of the country.