Project Report Done Sans Acknowledgement

Finally did my project report somehow and got it signed too. I didn’t include the acknowledgement. Can’t claim to have set a trend Just following the trend set by someone already there. It was questioned yes. I was asked why I did not include the acknowledgements. And later asked why I did not acknowledge even my parents or even God and what about the people that really helped me ? I usually reply with just a smile when I know anything I say will be used against me. So, then I was told how proud I was of myself. (???) Hell, yea. I am. I got away with it, didn’t I ?

But, thinking about it, I did want to acknowledge a few people and maybe I will stick a page inside now that I have gotten it signed. The only reason I didn’t include it in the first place was I did’nt want to be asked why I acknowledged certain people and did not acknowledge my guide and all that crap. Here are the people who helped me out:

Pradeep Kanthan (IV Mechanical) , C Karthik (IV Mechanical) for their immense help and patience with the mechanical model of my project. They made me a mechanical model for my requirements for which I was prepared to pay upto Rs.10,000 for almost one tenth of that price. Also, thanks to Karthik for helping me out with my CAD model. Thanks guys.

Shivakeshavan (My senior in college and currently working in IITM) for his patience in listening my problems out even when he was clearly bugged with it. He might not have spoon fed me or helped directly with anything in my project, but I am really thankful that he didn’t. You learn things only when you try and find solutions to the problems.

My brother, for his help with the electronics in my project.

Vibushan (IV CSE Amrita) and Vivek(IV CSE Amrita) for throwing light on databases and all that. Well, I did’nt end up doing what I wanted, but as Vibu puts it, “why are you (EEE guy) even working on/with databases ?” (Dawgs, thank your stars. Psst, I am not telling anyone how you let me down. )

Abhi, for help with the printouts.

And last but not the least, everyone else who hasn’t bothered asking me what I am doing and then chipping in with what they think about it. Thanks a lot, but I really didn’t want the spotlight, nor your opinion. ;) 

My Other PCB

Well, I had to check certain sequences on an LED arrangement and my breadboard(s) were already cluttered. So I decided to make yet another (pseudo) PCB with 16 LED’s in it. I can use it for testing and stuff. Just like the things we have in our Labs where we test Digital IC’s.

I had this one board lying around since my first semester when I used it to check the characteristics of diode and BJT’s. Sadly, only now I realised that it’s meant only for that. I had no tracks on the board. Which meant I had to use those many more wires. Dumb of me isn’t it ? Well, I decided to test my circuit at around 23:00 and by then the shops would be closed.

Anyway, this is how sad it looks. 

The Twin Boards

Sans Tracks

Testing Circuit

With Wires

!= ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

My B.E Final Year Project acknowledgements. 

***********************Acknowledgement*****************************

I do not wish to thank the <funny title> Chairman, the <funnier title> Chairwoman , the <Not so funny any longer title> Secretary, the <Degree that has no relevance to the post> Director, the <totally irrelevant> Producer for not being involved in any remote possible way with my project, for also not contributing so much as an iota to the project. (If I may add, they were no more supports to me than my behind. Actually, thinking about it, my behind is hell a lot more support. )

I do not with to thank my HOD, because I don’t think I have seen him/her more than twice this semester. I could thank the bus driver more. At-least he ensures I travel to college and get back home safely and I see him everyday.

I however thank my Project guide for at-least not being a hindrance and a constant source of annoyance and irritation. Thanks a lot sir/madam. Even if you did not contribute much, at-least you did not try and impose the thoughts conceived in your sesame sized brain, on me.

I want to thank Lord Almighty because of the fear that things might not work as inhtended on the final day, otherwise. (I am God fearing. OK, this is not sarcasm either. Just being matter of fact.)  

********************************************************************************************

Moral of the post:

Don’t thank someone just because you think sucking up to them on this one tiny page will make a tremendous difference to your results or your project marks. Losers!!

The Other Side of PCB

Well, here are some pics of my PCB. Worst PCB ever!! Yet, I have to make do with it. Sad isn’t it ?

It’s the most pathetic board I have ever seen. At first glance, it misses your naked eye, but on closer inspection or when using your Multimeter, you find out that all the traces that are not supposed to be in contact are in-fact  touching. Sadly for me, I noticed this after having soldered a couple of IC’s in. For a while I thought the problem was with the solder itself. After several attempts to set it right, I had a hunch that the tracks itself could be touching each other. And man, was my hunch right. Almost every track was touching the other track!! And I had to use a Swiss Army Knife to remove the copper between tracks Imagine!!

(IC’s in place)

(IC’s and a few wires. Takes longer than you can imagine)

(Flipsyde)

The original idea was to make my own PCB. But I couldn’t find my drilling machine and to be honest, it involves a lot more effort. I would have used a breadboard, but then one of my IC’s refused to sit in it.  

Done with Project Report

I finally finished the project report. Well, almost…. There is still one chapter left, but then there is not much I can do about that particular chapter. So my work for the documentation is done. It comes to some 50 sides with absolutely no details whatsoever. I actually wanted to add details. Believe me, I did. But then I don’t want to use my brain at 1:30 in the morning. (Even if I try to get it to do some thinking,  it says “Access Denied. Try Later.” No, it does not say “Bad Cookie”)

But, hey as one of my friends says “It’s a Project Report, not a Manual”. Exactly!! It’s not meant to be so detailed that our college can start it’s own project centre and use our project reports to “guide” future batches. Or, in other words, copy it word for word. I am sure that people will at-least make use of the modules if you give them details of your work.

I might redo some chapters later on,if they give me some more time. But then got to keep the number of pages in check. I have to hand in 4 copies of reports. (God knows for what!! So that, they can make Library access slips maybe.) And bear the bloody entire cost myself too.  :-( 

Anyway, now to go complete the Project itself…. (What a system!!)

Bleddy Project Report

Well for someone who writes I don’t know how many posts on an average per day, I am finding it incredibly hard to do my project report. Well, part of the reason is the fact that I am yet to complete a few modules. (Damn me for being lazy.) Why haven’t I completed it still ? I am just a lazy bugger that’s all.

So now, I am forced to sit and do it chapter by chapter. Worst thing though and something I really hate, the modules I am working on right now is forcing me to modify the modules that I had already completed and hence redo the documentation too. Friggin bad!! Now I am doing them twice instead of once.

I know no one really reads your project report and juniors benefiting from my report is the last thing on my mind. (Which is why you won’t find any of the implementation details in it.) However, I do set standards for myself and I’d hate to hand in a crappy report with stuff copy pasted from Wikipedia. (Jeez, stop that for heavens sakes!!)

My circuits are incredibly hard to draw on paint and the simulation tolls I have don’t have all of my IC’s. I finally found one which had my IC’s (or rather let me customize the IC’s). Sadly it drew a circuit that I felt like puking on. (Thank God, my monitor is vertical. Else, I might have.)

And to be honest, using Word is crappy. Especially if you have to draw Flowcharts and stuff. Hear that Microsoft ? (Of-course not. But if you do, do something about it.) And equations can be a nightmare. (I heard the office 2007 has something for flowcharts and stuff. Visio ? Not checked it out yet.) Well, I know we can insert symbols, but it’ s so bloody frustrating. The worst of all, naming all my figures and tables. God ,save me…..

 OK, I better get back to it now.

My First Time on MRTS

I went to Pradeep’s place today. Pradeep and C Karthik are helping me with my project and I take this medium (as well) to thank them. Pradeep, especially has been doing a lot of work. I won’t go into details of that, but here are a couple of snaps of Easter Lilies I snapped while at his place.

Afterwards, we went to Parry’s Corner* (another first for me) to get a couple of things. I have never, till date traveled by MRTS trains. I have taken the normal trains a couple of time when I had to travel from Tambaram to SRM. Trains are very convenient actually. It didn’t take much time to reach the Beach station from where we walked to Parry’s Corner*. (another first. A day of firsts, eh.)  

Here’s a snap of the Kotturpuram MRTS station. If you look closely, you can see the Thiruveeka Bridge. (It’s called that, right ?) and Adyar estuary. Sadly, I don’t have optical zoom. So this is as good a picture as I could get from where I was standing. (You can make out the silhouette of the two of us.)

Second Project Review Goes Well

Had my second project review yesterday. Went pretty much alright.

Preparing for the review:

Heard of eleventh hour ? Well, this is even worse. I got up at 6:10 in the morning and realised that I didn’t have a presentation. To make things worse, I was not even sure what I was going to present in this review. I am normally very clear about what I want done and how. So there I was sitting in front of this same monitor, groggy and clueless as to what I was doing. Then I pulled in a few slides form my first review and added some masala to it here and there. By the time I finished the lame presentation, I realised that the time was 07:10. God!! My bus comes at 7:20. Hurriedly went had a bath, dressed up real quick and ran to my bus stop.

Missed the Bus:

The road seemed deserted. It seems the CM was going to go through the road and hence they asked everyone to stay of it. I was hoping my bus had been held up by it, but my stop mates had vanished So I knew there was no point in waiting for a bus that would never come. So I went and took a PTC bus. (Which I almost never do!! Normally when I miss my bus, I return home. But this was review you see. ) The bloody wretched conductor tells me it won’t stop at my college bus stop. So instead I buy a ticket to the nearest stop. I reached the stop alright at 7:55.

The long and agonising wait:

As I stood there waiting for a bus to take me to my college less than 5 kilometres away, Deluxe buses started pouring in. Not one, not two, not three but EIGHT freakin deluxe buses went by. Well, am I a miser who won’t pay for a deluxe bus ticket ? Of-course not. I could have paid 100 bucks to reach college on time. Thing is these DELUXE buses don’t stop in my college stop either. Grrrrrrrrrrrr So I was standing there fuming. Finally some bus came along which took me to my college by 8:55. Imagine!!

The Review:

Ah, I have very little to say about the review itself. it went alright and I was not asked too many questions or anything. And I was able to show a bit of working of my hardware model. So, yea went pretty Ok.

The Journey Back:

Just when I was about to leave college, it started raining. We saw a deluxe bus coming our way and waved madly at it. Thankfully, he stopped and I came home all dry.

Last Day in College (Everything Official About It)

Well, I never write posts related to college normally. There are quite a few posts on AU, but not on college. I think it’s time to make an exception. Tomorrow would be the last working day (officially) of my 4 year Engineering course. Yea, we will later have to go for the exams and stuff. But no more sitting in the classroom. (We haven’t had classes for a while now) It’s hard to think straight in times like this. There’s always a mix of happiness and sadness (even if only a bit) involved.

Here’s probably a list of things ill miss doing:

• Getting up in the morning and mindlessly running to the bus stop at around 7:20 A.M. I have always been in a good route. The bus from Besant Nagar used to be excellent in the first few semesters. Then it got crowded and to add to that OMR road construction began.I remember days when I had to run with shoes in hand just so that I didn’t miss the bus. You see, I have this policy wherein I stay home if I miss the bus. Once missed a model exam for it and I came out clean when asked about it. (To the shock and astonishment of the staff in-charge.) I still remember taking a private bus in first year, not knowing the bus stop name and buying a ticket for Mahabalipuram. I somehow managed to get down after seeing the college. Unfortunately the next stop was near Hindustan college and I had to walk all the way to college, Erwin Kreysig in one hand and drafter/ED charts in another. I did make it on time though. Decided to never take private buses after that.
• Breakfasts in college mess:As bad as the college food is, my palette is used to it. I mean, I have been eating there for four years now. (Yea, I know I have no taste in food. ) It’s not the food I will miss. It will be the discussions we had over breakfast. But then things changed as we progressed through years. From being an absolutely wonderful place with very little crowd where one could have discussions in the first year, to a crowded place in the second where one had to hunt for stools to using paper plates and all that in the third. I still like the well lit portion of the mess closest to the basketball court. Abhi used to come to the mess back then. So did a few seniors. (Rahul, Varun, Pankaj et all)
• Lunch: Lunch (by lunch I mean the recess and not the food itself) used to again be good till they made two slots out of it. This way, I no longer got to see the guys who I normally had lunch with. It was alright for a while till my class dayscholars came along. Then that changed too. They took the smart option and opted out. :D And I was stuck alone. 
• There are a few more things I’ll miss. Not going to put everything up here though.

The worst thing about college is epitomised best by the boys’ mess probably, from a bright, well lit and airy place, it got duller and duller and more cramped.  I used to enjoy my first few semesters in college. It used to be kinda pleasant. I had come to terms with the fact that I had done abysmally badly in my board exams and that I would make best use of what I had. And I think semesters 1-5 were OK with semester 6 being bearable. The last year or so though, has been pathetic with a lame #uck for principal.

Things were OK for a while, before they started introducing the worst of schemes. Had some happy times, but I am just happy to be on the way out.

Sacrifices to be made

There have been many many symposiums in the last few days and there will be even more in the coming days. Starting from 4th of this month, we had EMF (Engineering Mathematics Festival) where I made the finals of Quiz and Crossie last time over and came second in the quiz. (teaming up with Renju from St.Joseph)  Pity I couldn’t make it in-spite of Gokul and A.J inviting me over. Sorry guys. The finals of all the math events was on the 5th. On 5th we also had some dept symposium in Jerusalem engineering college. On 5th and 6th, we also had all the department symposiums in Jeppiar Engineering College. Pretty crowded week this.

SSN culturals started yesterday and we also had Sastha engineering colleges symposium yesterday. Hari from SSN had invited me for the SSN general quiz and it’s today. Sad I again can’t make it.

Symposium crazy:

I for one attend every symposium possible. Last semester, in-spite of being denied OD, I bunked classes to attend symposiums and my attendance was something like 70 %. (They can disallow you from writing exams if your attendance is below 75 % ) So, why on earth am I not attending symposiums when I don’t even have college to attend this time over ?

FINAL YEAR PROJECT - I haven’t even started on it and there’s a lot to do. I am supposed to show the entire working model this coming Thursday and I have no clue what I am doing. I had claimed to have finished certain modules by the first review. Truth is, it was existent only on the power point slides. SO, now I have to pay for it and sit and slog and make sure that I complete it on time. That reminds me, I need to stop blogging for a while too.