More than 44,000 students from the schools in Hyderabad contested in the School Level Preliminary Round of Aqua Regia – The Science Quiz. From among the teams that were short-listed for the Hyderabad City Finals, 1586 students (786 teams of two-participants each) reported at the venue, Sri Harihara Kalabhavan, Hyderabad at 08:30 am itself.

Since the event was touted as a Guinness World Record ™ breaking attempt, the contestants were visibly gung-ho about the whole affair from the time they reported at the registration desk. After the registration formalities, the teams were moved to their respective seating positions and instructions were given.

The First Round of the Hyderabad City Finals was based on a written format comprising of 6 different rounds titled – Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Astronomy, Personalities and Science Mixtures.

After this Round, the following teams qualified for the on-stage finals of Hyderabad City Finals of Aqua Regia.

Little Flower High School

• C. Deepank
• Syed Mustafa Hashmi

DAV Public School, Neredmet

• Mehul Katiyar
• G Kaushik

Army School, Bolarum

• Apoorv Jindal
• Ravi Shankar

BP DAV School

• JVS Arun
• U. Ritwik

BVB Public School, BHEL

• Wasim Sajid
• Anurag Pandey

BVB, BHEL

• Prachee Sharma
• B. K . Satyadeep

Since the auditorium was packed to capacity with the participants, live telecast of the events inside the auditorium was arranged in a big Screen at the Lobby of the auditorium for the benefit of accompanying teachers and parents.

The roof came down as the Quiz Master, Mr. Ajay Antony announced exclusive audience prizes for the day – Four Apple iPods. The on-stage finals consisted of five rounds titled Blast Off, Spectrum, Reversible Reactions, Random Variables and Salvo – The Rapid Fire. The last two rounds were on the buzzer and saw high-voltage action among the contestants. At the end of the third round, Little Flower had not moved further from the 20 points they had secured in the opening round. They were placed third at that stage. Round 5 turned things around and only 5 points separated Army School and Little Flower – the top two at that stage.

Little Flower went into overdrive in the last round and cornered 40 points out of the total possible 100 and ensured that they were crowned Hyderabad City Champions. The Quiz Master had to intervene several times to manage the audience who had forged alliances with different teams on stage.

After 75 minutes of quizzing the final positions in the Hyderabad City Finals was as follows:- Winners:- Little Flower, Hyderabad

1st Runners Up:- BVB public school, BHEL (Wasim Sajid, Anurag Pandey)

2nd Runners Up:- Army School, Bolarum

4th Position:- BVB BHEL (Prachee Sharma, B. K . Satyadeep)

5th Position:- DAV Public School

6th Position:- BPDAV School.

A total cash prize of Rs. 25,000/- was distributed among the top six teams in the ratio Rs. 10,000/-, Rs. 6000/-, Rs. 3000/-, Rs. 2000/-, Rs. 2000/- and Rs.2000/-.

Little Flower Hyderabad qualified for the Regional Finals that followed….

• Click here to view the photographs of the event