A Great Experience

Participation is always more important than winning
Nothing could have been more precisely said, as I realized today.
Well, for the past one month I'd been feeling restless in classes. Nothing interesting was being done with my time and I assure that the vlsi classes are seriously considered a waste of time widely in my class. While most students use the time for the finishing of their record and observation works, I used to read story books. This was definitely an enjoyable pastime for that one hour but my active spirit could not just rest satisfied. Then dawned the idea of working on a project. Conveniently my dept announced an intra-college project presentation event. I had a relatively acceptable idea to work on and it has been a seriously great learning experience.
By "learning experience" I do not mean the technical learning alone. The concept involved was very simple- something that anyone who has attended a couple of micro processor programming classes can finish in a matter of probably three to four days. We learnt a lot of things which would be actually useful for life. A person can very well finish his/her lifetime without knowing how to program a microprocessor. But any adult who was born and brought up in a city must know the whereabouts of every nook and corner that matters in that city. This is precisely what we learnt very well. We got lost in several roads and ended up in places we hadn't even heard of, while getting the components to be used for the circuitry. But it is a fact that I wouldn't be relating this as a pleasant experience if Mr.Martin Cooper hadn't invented the device in my hand that I used to call up people who knew the area and reach the destination safe.
Then came the tryst with the dept lab attendants who are not quite enthusiastic about entrusting the students with their precious components. Here our guide helped us a great deal. He deserves a seriously large amount of gratitude from us for all that he has done for us. For one thing he did not shirk our idea away as silly or unrealistic. His attitude always has been that of "we shall try it out. it will be a study." Also his presence in the lab while we were working with the circuit was very useful so that our doubts were cleared then and there. He seriously has a computer-like memory and is specialised in many areas of ECE. We were lucky to get him to assist us.
The next hurdle was with the circuitry itself. There were a lot of technical problems related to the interfacing assembly language code and a detailed explanation of those would be boring for u readers. After several hours of code cracking, the circuit started working finally! A few accuracy problems were there. We could have left them as such. But we didn't and we increased the code complexity and ultimately on the night before the presentation, the code didn't work at all!
I was a half-zombie that night ( actually yesterday ). In addition, the knowledge of who would be judging the event gave me a very unpleasant feeling for we have not had a pleasant teacher-student relationship this entire semester.
Anyways I had a blind belief that if we did the coding again today morning it would work for sure. And thank heavens it did!!
Well the presentation was not entirely successful. We did have several glitches and forever there resided an inferior feeling because the other participants ( all seniors ) had greatly-packed and fully functional end products as exhibits. We were presenting our circuit on a breadboard!! Most of them had won prizes in several inter college events in the state with the projects they were presenting and ours was nothing compared to those.
Still, everybody encouraged us. I am infinitely thankful to all my seniors and teachers who encouraged our work saying that this is just the beginning and it is a very good one at that. It really boosted our spirits.
The viewing of other exhibits also added a great deal to our knowledge. We also got to communicate with many seniors and even some juniors. A really pleasant experience!
Ultimately at the end of the day the list of teams getting through to the next round was announced and as expected we were not in the list. But we got participation mementos and we left quite contented and determined to win the next time.
The greatest part of the day came when we were waiting for the bus in the stop. I got a call from a classmate asking me to meet the not-so-pleasant prof who was the judge. We went back to the college expecting a scolding for wasting time on such a silly venture. Wonder of all wonders!!! He gave us a gift!! A portrait of a landscape.. And he encouraged us to improve a great deal and assured that if we work on this very idea (that I have rated as silly) for the next couple of months, we could have a completely functional working product which would be commercially very useful. We just couldn't believe our senses of hearing and vision! This very prof used to scold me and my teammate for absolutely nothing on an almost daily basis just a month back. Also two other very much knowledgeable and experienced staff members were there to encourage us.
Things couldn't have been better for us at the end of the day. :) We went straight to the hostel then and informed our other teammate as well as the other girls there.. Wow!! What fun we had, relating the experience to them !! Our happiness when shared really was multiplied a great deal!!
It does sound like a story with an "all is well that ends well" theme right?? :) :)