The project that was......

Was totally engrossed in doing the Comp Arch project yesterday....tension and all.... Atlast submitted and came back(this project also needs a whole page...but laterz)...
anyways it drove me down the memory lane....... the project i did in my third year of engineering...
Solar Tracker... not just a project but our baby indeed....

Prologue:
It all started with Jawa and me doing all kinda weird experiments on the stepper motors and the parallel port.... well and that too in the PLs and vacations!!! dunno why!!! anyways, one more thing to mention...since I distincly remember it... had a bad time recognising the para port pins... we had cut the port cable and very skillfully me removed the insulations(expert at that!!!!-mind u the teflon cable was a pain) anyways, and then trying to match the loose ends with the pins the other side.... well BAAM!!! "pins 2 and 3 are short ...hey no now its pin 2 short with pins 14,15,..oh GOD wats this... hey no now pin 15's good... but the red and green are short" this went on for 3 hrs!!!GOD!!! in he end the great mind figured out that one should not leave the uninsulated bunch of wires just lying together since they touch each other and mess it all up.......
once that done, we went on to run a stepper motor...oooh!! the triumph when it worked!!! i cant even imagine wat was in ther to celebrate... c'mon anyone does that.... and it was a wee bit dam easy... but still... was an achievement then....

Baby Steps:
In Second year, Jawahar came up with the idea of a Solar tracker..... we grouped up with Purvs and Sudarshan, and came up with an algorithm to track the max light..... went to Rajiv electronics, got LDRs and started cutting a cardboard sheet just to see it the the method works.... yes it does!!! good... but then we can do it the other way round.... yeah lets try that too... cut the cardboard again!!! Art and craft class basically!!! but that was ok... the other method worked fine ...cool....went ahead to design the assembly required to turn the pointer to max light. All sticks and paper and cardboard!! it was really funny..... and the motors were 1/2 a kg each....
We went to our HOD with this idea, this is the model... we want it made in wood or something.... he criticised saying thers no way u can mount this thing and make it work!!!...Well... that geared us up!!! WE ARE GONNA MAKE IT WORK!!! watch us.....
We went to dad's friend, Mr. Menon(a special thanks to him!!) and gave him the weird craft i had made.... and hey... he said he'd make an aluminium model for me!!! cool!!!

And a huge thanks to our mentor and Prof... Zakir Hussain, always bucking us up and helping out in every possible way.....

Gearing up!!:
Then we started pondering over the circuits we would require..... and actually went on to build and test them..... The soldering and testing !! gross!!! we made such mess out of it all...... loads of wires to work with ....and hey this was still the 1st stage... actually i dont remember why we didnt do it on a bread board!!! And of course it wouldnt work.......... then go on to desolder it and solder it again....... that was routine............anyway we had started quite early... guess we were the first in class to start....

Recourse:
We came up with different circuits... now had to interface those....... hmm..... and the model wasnt ready......... so we took a huge break... almost 2 and half months or maybe 3.. PLs, exams and vacations.......... then we decided to wok on a CONTRAPTION to present at IITB.... one more month gone!!! well 'gone' but gone well... we won the contest at IIT... that done we restarted on the project in full gear.... no one knew if it was gonna work or not... we just had seperate circuits...............

Back again:
Went on to write a code detect max light and to interface those circuits........well that wasnt enough......we had to rebuild all the circuits together......awwww........ again all the soldering and mess........ we messed up everybodys home.....

We then got the model.....it was superb... professional!!!

All this time there was a nice contribution frm excitement, anticipation, tension, frustration and all more that can fit in!!! yeah.... and quarrels and fights(even that was fun though)... and the frequent visits to Rajiv electronics.....

Finally we got the thing interfaced and all... now to get it working......... debugging!!!! guess most of us know wat a pain that is............... Well after long hours and days of hard work and frustration the thing ultimately worked GREAT... yeaaay \:D/.......now that was realllllllllll triumph!!!! CELEBRATIONS......
We just couldnt believe it!!!! the thing was working and it was tracking max light... it used to move along with just a torch... Awesome!!!(ok now this is kpk....)

Epilogue:
We won the prize for this in MIT.... hardly an achievement... :D:D
We were planning to continue this for BE, and make it wireless and stuff....... and our Zakir Hussain sir was planning to market it!!!! he always had real high hopes from Jawa and me!!!

Well, somehow we decided not to continue it and guess that was the fall of the curtain!!.......


Hey, it doesnt sound all that interesting to read i guess......... but we really had loads of fun doing it together.... am sure my partners in crime will recall those moments after reading this!!!


Phew!!! this was too long for me..... till the next blog.............ciao...