bugless

usually i do my 443 labs with steven. we were supposed to work on lab 2 last week thursday but that was the day that the clyde shut down because the man drilled into one of the main power lines. yeah...totally inconvenient. :S since there wasnt any other time we could both work on it together we decided itd be best to do it on our own...

i cant say i was too excited about this cuz id NEVER done a lab by myself...ever! ive always had a lab partner to do my labs with. in 212 it was john broderick (major tender mercy) and in 313, 362, and 443 its been steven reeves (another major tender mercy). its SO much better to have a partner for these labs because two heads are always better than one. it makes the work faster and easier because you can split the work and learn from each other. plus you can catch each others' mistakes.

sometimes these labs can be really hard. and almost always they take FORever! the longest part about it is when things just arent working right--sometimes for absolutely no reason at all--or you arent getting the right values...these kinds of things can take hours to debug.

so you see, this was a curve ball that i was definitely not expecting and, once thrown, totally not looking forward to. i was dreading the hours in the analog lab, the inevitable circuit/equipment problems, and the unfortunate reality of doing it all by myself. i just didnt wanna do it. (you would think that i would feel more than capable, seeing as im a SENIOR...but no, its not true. i like having a partner.) anyways, i knew it had to get done. i had to suck it up and be a big girl.

thursday morning i got to the analog lab at 11 and started working on it. the calculations took forever, as expected, but at least i had lots of help. it took me about 2 hours and by that time i had to leave for my dance class. so i was gone for an hour and when i got back at 2 i was ready to roll.

i bought a few components from the shop, built the circuit all by myself, connected everything up, and IT WORKED! just like that. it was amazing! it was a miracle! it was working! and just so you know, this NEVER happens...every time ive built a circuit theres always been at least one thing that goes wrong. but not this time! it was almost too good to be true. i kept checking my connections, the oscope, and the power supply to see if it was a fluke. but it wasnt! it was like magic. :)

so the moral of the story is that i officially (and successfully) completed an entire 443 lab all by myself. it was the very first circuit i ever designed/built without any help from a lab partner. and it only took 5 hours from start to finish. :) i didnt run into any major bugs and i finished it in time for the due date. THIS was an accomplishment. and it felt good.

i even decided to document the momentous occasion with pictures. :D

my work station after i got my circuit to work:

a schematic of the circuit i designed and built:

the components used to build the circuit...

a breadboard:

BJTs:

resistors:

capacitors:

wires:

the finished product (RC oscillator):

ta-da! proof that it works:

(if you're wondering why this is proof, the point of the circuit was to output a sinusoid with an amplitude of 3 to 4 volts and to oscillate at a frequency between 4 kHz and 6 kHz. since the voltage peak to peak is 7.8 V that means the amplitude is 3.9 V which barely makes the specs. the frequency is 6.27 kHz which is only a 5% error. and for engineers, thats good enough. :D hence, proof that my circuit works.)