About us

In this section

Rahul
Karishma
Leena

Subhash Deodhar
Sunil Bhave

Acknowledgments
Resources

     Our team consists of three members, Rahul, Karishma, and Leena, and also two coaches, Subhash Deodhar and Sunil Bhave. Our most difficult obstacle was that Leena lives in India, while one family lives near Chicago,and Sunil goes to school in Berkeley, California.

     At first our topic was the Ancient Wonders of the World, but we realized that we would not be able to include a travel or interactivity section because only one of the Ancient Wonders is still standing.

     We had many ideas for different sections in our site, but the problem was how to make them work since none of the members had any web designing background. We all researched the topics at the library and on the web.Communicating the information would have been difficult, so we turned to the internet and used resources such as chat rooms and email to transfer information and ideas between us. Although we had no web designing experience, our interest and determination allowed us to research other sites and look around for ideas on how to make our site.

     Some of our information also came from our experiences. Leena has visited the Eiffel Tower and the Leaning Tower of Pisa, while another has been to the Statue of Liberty and the Taj Mahal. This gave us some pictures for our gallery and more ideas on what to write about that place.

     Rahul was assigned to be our webmaster because it had been his hobby. The only knowledge of HTML that he had was from watching his Mom, Rekha, making web pages for the college that she teaches at. He also developed graphic designing skills on his own from using graphic programs and self tutorials.

     The most difficult part was making a mirror site in Marathi. Although Leena lives in India and knows the language, she did not have the software to translate the site. Every team member knows how to speak Marathi, but only Karishma and Leena can read and write it. The Deodhars have a font called Shanta, developed by Mr. Sri Krishna Patil, of California. So Karishma learned how to use the font and translated the information into Marathi. For some of the words that she was not familiar with, she used an English-Marathi dictionary, or asked Coach Subhash Deodhar.

     We spent hundreds of hours to make this site informative and entertaining. We hope you enjoy the site and appreciate the effort that we put in.

 
 
About the Authors

Rahul

     Taking part in the ThinkQuest '99 contest has made web page design my hobby. Being part of a team, and designing a web page of these proportions has been lots of fun. Besides using the computer, I enjoy playing sports: especially basketball, drawing and painting, and playing the trombone in my school band. As of the fall of 1999 I am 13 years old and attending eighth grade at Hawthorn Junior High School in Vernon Hills,Illinois.

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Karishma
     Although designing web pages is not one of my hobbies, I have learned a lot while taking part in the ThinkQuest '99 contest. We all speak Marathi (Indian language from the state of Maharashtra), but translating was the most challenging part in making this site. I learned to read and write in Marathi and that has helped me to make a mirror site for the web page.Other things that keep me busy are playing the flute in the school band for eight years, learning Indian classical dance, and of course school. I am 17 years old, and in the fall of 1999 I will be a senior at Libertyville High School, in Libertyville, Illinois.

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Leena
     I live in Mumbai (Bombay), India. I am 15 years old and studying in 10th grade at Vidya Prasarak Mandal English High School. I am fortunate to have a computer at home and access to Internet which made participation in this contest possible. Our school does not have Internet ready computers. My hobbies are listening to Hindi songs, earning Indian classical dance, and reading Nancy Drew books. I have visited 4 out of 7 wonders - Statue of Liberty, Leaning Tower, Eiffel Tower and Taj Mahal. Thus I was able to describe the Wonders from first hand experience.

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Subhash Deodhar (coach)
     Chemical Engineer by profession, I grew up in Mumbai, India. Today, my role as a coach was to provide some training in use of web page design software. Rahul did a tremendous job designing pages and writing HTML code using Homesite. His expertise multiplied as he visited many web sites to look at the contents as well as the design techniques. Karishma and Leena learned to browse the web to find the necessary information. My wife Rekha was highly instrumental in reminding all team members to finish the tasks by the appropriate deadlines.

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Sunil Bhave (coach)

I grew up in Mumbai, India and completed my high-school education at Kelkar Junior College. At age 17, I came to California to pursue a degree in EECS at UC Berkeley.

Currently I am working at the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center and am an officer with the EE Graduate Student Association.

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