M G Harish

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Fair Fun with Fun Fair and Murphy

Fun, once again. Yes. We are enjoying our last days at the college, regardless of our pressing internals and the final exams coming in just about a week. Yesterday (12th May) we had project exhibition in our college, and everyone was to exhibit the project they have done. After that we decided to have some fun in the fun fair in the ground opposite to Aruna theatre.

We had internal test in the morning. After finishing it, (how was it, is not the question to be asked, since it was by no means a test and having not read even for ten minutes, I returned an almost-blank paper) we went to the hostel and checked our project. It worked fine. So we packed it in a box and brought to the college and set it up. But there is Murphy's law which can be put as if anything can go wrong, it will. Yes, our project was not working at all! The same hardware we had built from scratch and which was working properly just 10 minutes ago, was showing no sign of giving some useful output. We struggled for about half an hour in the lab. But being unarmed (not with guns and bullets, but with multimeter, soldering guns and all), we couldn't debug it there. So we decided to go back to the hostel and test it again there. Instantly we were able to figure out that the microcontroller was getting reset repeatedly because the reset pin was having a voltage of 3.5 volts. But why, was still a mystery. We suspected about every component and even replaced a capacitor. It took us about two hours to find that the wire connected to the output of an unused timer was given by mistake, to the reset pin of the microcontroller. If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it, says the Original Murphy's law. Our CNG had done it during our pack-up earlier. In the mean time, the power supply connector got disconnected. We had to do everything which we shouldn't have been doing at that time. We had to device a power supply. By that time, the exhibition was half over. Ensuring that the project is working again, we went to the college and it gave no further problems. Being one of a very few projects done in the college, it wasn't below par, even though some finishing work needs to be completed. After demonstrating it to the judges and others, we packed it up and many of us gathered at the juice centre. Another Murphy's law applies whenever we go there. No matter what is the direction of the wind, when people smoke, the smoke always goes to the non smoker

After having a glass of juice, we decided to go to the Fun Fair. I, V1, V2, SS, MAP, CNG, VBK, PKS, MB, SBS, BVP, LDA, TRM, NRS, BA, MG, ARH, ABN, RA, LDA's brother... our gang was big. No sooner than we entered the fair, ARH was invited by a small boy who called her aunty. It was sufficient for us to tease her for some time. Then someone purchased popcorns, and all of us shared it. We went ahead. It was time for the play.


Myself enjoying Tora-Tora

All of us played the Tora-Tora, which was given the name Break dance. Some of us opined that it wasn't any better than Harihar-Davanagere city buses. Then we went to play Columbus. It was much better. But we had to wait for it more than the time we played. We then headed towards the Slant wheel and then to the Giant wheel. This was the first time I was on a giant wheel, but I didn't feel any fear. Probably I was phobophobic than altophobic, which is a good sign. Those who didn't land on the giant wheel were having juice and other chats on the land. We had our time. I called my home while on the giant wheel and informed that I would be late. After the play was over, we had everything which others were having when we were on the wheel and a little more. It was already about 9:30 and we backed towards home.

All in all, it was a good outing just before the exams. We follow, once again, Murphy's philosophy: Smile... tomorrow will be worse. But tomorrow (14th May) happens to be my birthday, and I hope it won't be worse.

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