PE Lab hours

First of all, let me welcome you to my class – it’s actually my Power Electronics lab hours right now. I was thinking of introducing my group mates now, but since I’m quite busy running towards the lab right now, with two of my group mates, ill just skip it. We hadn’t written the rough record and had to complete it after the first hour.
Finally, by 10:07 we (A1, A2 and me) reached the Lab, all panting and sweating. There is one more member to our group, A4. And she is sitting over there, hiding from the teachers behind the power supply box, waiting for us.
Ours is the first batch and it was already been called and now we have to wait till the end to get the usual scolding for being late. If there is one thing that I don’t agree with my parents, it would be for giving a name that starts with A. I wouldn’t have minded if there was a silent K in front of my name. We always have to face everything first whether it is exams or seminars or speeches even the first to report to the lab.
After getting enough scolding for being late and again even more scolding for not learning the design well, we moved towards our table while A4 went to get the components.
One thing about this semester’s PE lab is that we haven’t got a single output all this time. But thanks to A2’s ingenious skill to plot graphs without the values despite A4’s consistent whining, we managed to get our records corrected on time.
This time we were supposed to make a digital trigger circuit. A4 came back with the components and placed it over the power supply box and we started assembling it.
“We need a 10k resistor” I said after a while.
“I brought it… it might be somewhere here” replied A4.
“Well, it not here. Where did you place it?” asked A2 with a bored expression on his face, trying to fit an IC which suddenly decided to resist getting onto the breadboard.
“Over there” replied A4 pointing to the top of the power supply box, her face turning grave ”Oh God, it might have fallen in thought the gap.”
A few seconds of numb silence.
“What should we do? Should we tell ma’am?”
“No! She will surely throw us out. May be nothing will happen” I said trying to convince myself.
“Or may be it will be shorted” said A1 with a smile” and we have to buy a new PS box.”
“It’s just a resistor. 10k right? I don’t think anything serious would happen. We can turn it ON and check.” replied A2 now seemingly interested.
Failing to produce any counter arguments, we agreed and we all moved back and slowly turned ON the switch.
Nothing happened. Well, it may not be that bad a day after all.
“Finished already?” came a comment from A5 from the other group seeing us turning on the supply. He was in our group till last sem, but got separated now. Not waiting to reply for that, we turned to our breadboard.
We somehow completed the wiring after a while and cautiously turned on the supply.
“What is that smell?”
Panic striking in slowly, we looked everywhere for the source, particularly the power supply box, sniffing each and every corner of it like a dog.
And we finally found the culprit. A resistor fuming on the breadboard, now hard black in color.
A4 brought another one and again turned ON the supply.
Same old smell, but this time we saw the resistor changing its color to dark black as it burned. It was kind of cool to see a resistor meet its end in our hands.
“Wrong design” I screeched pulling a pile of hair from my head, looking at the design “the resistor should have a higher value”
“Whose book is this?” screamed A4, throwing my rough record over the other side of the table. I got the design wrong while copying it down from the senior’s old record.
“You put a 10 ohm resistor in place of a 10k resistor.” She said.
“Sorry…” I said with a smile on my face” Can you go and change it? I don’t like that lab attendant guy over there. He once scolded me for burning an IC for the umpteenth time.”
I really don’t understand why these guys consider the components as their children. The expression they give when we burn an IC or something is what you usually give to a person who has murdered your only child.
And the good thing about having a girl in your group is that they will do anything you ask for even though you get to hear some whining. Moreover the lab attendants are always happy to assist a girl in every matter possible.
After replacing the resistor, we again turned it ON. We all were 99% sure that it wont work. And the probability stood good.
Nothing happened. No change in the DSO (Digital Storage Oscilloscope). It always showed the same boring noise signal no matter what you give to it. I never liked that thing, though it’s pretty useful in wasting time.
Now that we got no output, none of us bothered to check the circuit and went on to do other stuff to kill time. A1 took the DSO and started playing with it, A2 with the multimeter comparing his body resistance with ours. I started to make a plant with the wire we had in front.
With a large thick wire as the stem, I connected each leaves and branches on it. One boy A6 (lots of A-s around here) from the other class, had made a ring with resistors and a 555 IC. But that was his version of the story, but all other versions had a part in which he gifted it to a girl who burned the IC with her piercing stare.
But I had no intention of gifting my plant to anyone. Even if I had any such plans, it wouldn’t have worked. You will soon find out why.
After completing the plant, while admiring my own creation, A4 came out of nowhere with a cutting plier and cut off the top of my plant.
“Why did you do that?” I screamed.
“I was just removing the waste so that you can make a flower on top.” She said innocently.
“THAT WAS THE FLOWER!” I replied, taking the fallen flower from under the table.
By now A1 and A2 peered in.
“Why did you do that?” asked A2 “Do you know how hard it is to make such a thing? Push her off the stool, Amal. Push her.” and started pushing me. (She was sitting on my left side and they on the right)
I tried hard to resist the push from A1 and A2, but failing, I somehow jumped off my stool to the back side there by knocking down K who was busy flirting with L. Luckily the teachers didn’t notice this commotion.
I then jumped over my stool, with one leg on it to get back to my position, but while doing so took a moment to admire the beauty of the Lab from a different point of view. It was strange but amusing. But all my feelings suddenly drained away as my eyes fell on the teacher staring in wonder and anger at the student who dared to stand on a stool and enjoy the lab while she was on watch. I promptly fell on the stool and closed my eyes shut wishing it was all a dream. But even before I could wonder why the others were silent, I felt the presence of the teacher beside me.
Another scolding: the third one today.
When the teacher went back, A5 grinned from the other side. After cordially presenting him my middle finger, well hidden from the teachers by the faithful ammeter, I leaned over my record.
Now that we haven’t got the output, we borrowed the working circuit from K’s batch, again with constant whining from A4, showed the waveforms to the teacher who by the way was busy getting ready to leave, nodding at us even before getting enough time to figure out which DSO she was supposed to look at.
And now A2 started his battle with the graphs, and will soon produce an ideal plot.
See you later, I have to copy these graphs to my record now.
Take care :)