#EE- Rounding Up The Final Two Years

This is a sequel to a post that I wrote two years back #EE- Summing Up two years , which was a review of my first two years with Electrical Engineering. I finished college a week ago and it only seems appropriate to pen (type) this final chapter before the next story begins.

Now that I am wiser by a few more shocks, I have plenty to say on the topic . Re-reading my last post on this subject matter, I realized that I had done injustice to the subject. But, then it was written in a lighter mood, with a glass of juice , light music and probably an active skype connection (I guess!)

On the matter of insulation (that's where I left off last time), I suggest you take it very seriously. I have recently been made aware of certain tragic incidents in the field. Play it safe, use insulation. To the lighter side, or in a more cliched sense - up the tough mountain. I'll not say much on the courses this time around. Go download the syllabus, or contact me for a pdf! 

Power Electronics, this is where electrical engineering actually got real for me. Electrical Drives in the next semester is what kept me going and  remains my favorite till date. My fascination with electric drives and the automotive world led me to select (Foolishly or wisely, I don't know!) my final year project in the same field. (We'll come to that later)

Power Systems got more interesting with the study of Power System Operation and Control, Protection, HVDC, FACTS etc. These are just fancy terms that actually stand for - High Voltage DC (HVDC) and Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS). This is where Power System design and Power Electronic devices come together.

Machines continued to be a severe pain (you-know-where). To top it all we even studied Design of Power Apparatus, which on the whole is a very interesting subject in the lab and a curse in the classroom.

SCADA and related courses were a walk in the park (not so much by examination scores, but who cares, eh?)

Two dreadful courses that I have kept for the end are Microprocessor and its Applications AND Digital Signal Processing/Processor and its Applications to Electro-mechanical Systems. The course name in each of the cases above can be broken into two - Microprocessor/DSP + applications. It is the latter that proved to be our Waterloo or Plassey or Abbotabad (whatever!) . In my opinion it should be sacrilege to conduct theory exams for such courses, a design practical would suffice. But, a man's got to suffer when he has to suffer (And so we did, Twice!)

This just about sums up Round 2 of Electrical Engineering.  Battered and bruised, the ordeal ended with the close of last month and we emerged Engineers! (result awaited!)

One additional course, (that was intentionally skipped) is the final year project, otherwise called the Major in our Uni. A lot of thought (or a trip to Janakpuri) goes into the selection of one's final year project. An interest in ED (Electric Drives) led me to opt for the development of a closed loop speed control mechanism of a brush-less DC hub motor. This machine, though the talk of the industry today, turned out to be too hot to handle! Getting it to run was tougher than anything we had attempted so far. After an agonizing wait and efforts coupled with terrible setbacks (Our karma - to pay for other's blunders with our own suffering!), it finally did run with expected performance and to say the least, we scraped through without much drama.

After the Project defense!

Looking back, these four years do not seem as tough as we made them out to be. It was more of a perceived notion that led us to believe that choice of electrical engineering as a major would prove to be our nemesis. I still continue to hold my stance from two years back - This was the best decision that I took in the last four years of my life and having attained the fulfillment of this dream, I am ready to take on the next challenge (which is another mammoth altogether!)

Closing lines :

Shocks and smoke may jar my bones
And my grades forever hurt me
I find pride and honour, nonetheless
In being an engineer of electricity!

-Anurag Arya, Electrical Engineer!

(forgive my poetry!)

Edit: Results were declared in the evening today. Cleared all subjects! (Whew!)

Two to Tango (At the bookstore)

One day both N. and I slipped to Crossword with a new idea in our heads - book spine poetry. Our new found craze in this activity led to a brainwave of using the vast collection offered by the store to feed our need. So, donning the 'hat of creativity' both took to the aisles and BINGO! we had seven poems by the end of our deputed time. Here is a short recollection of the amazing time we had creating poems out of book spines.

The first one!

Hickory Dickory dock

Kill Alex Cross

Four past Midnight

True at first light

The modus operandi was quite simple :-

1.Pick a book randomly off the shelf (which would obviously be an interesting title). 

2.Use it as the beginning for your next poem. 

3.Scour the bookshelves till you complete the poem.

Just after sunset,

windmills of the Gods

After the darkness,

games people play.

Be it fiction, romance,drama, thriller or a writing on the more serious issues, we left none untouched in our efforts to create something out of these.

 

It wasn't love at first.

The morning after

(in)the lake of dreams;

Oops! I fell in love

more than you can say.

It was fun as we ran hither and thither trying to find the next piece of the poem, searching the bookshelf from the top to the bottom, making discoveries, keeping books aside for use in the next one! For instance, N. had kept the books Vanity and Envy on reserve since she first set eyes on them and we were finally able to make something out of them !

The sword of thunder,

vanity,

envy,

betrayal,

games people play.

Quite interesting, isn't it? The fact that we had an entire bookstore to our disposal made it all the more better. We were quick ! A set of seven under two hours was an impressive feat.

Our next shot was at something that showcased women power.Here is our tribute to that.

 

Leading ladies

storming the world stage,

playing with fire,

power shift.

What next?

And then there was a poem from the Hindi section too! (We  solemnly swear that as far as Hindi is concerned we have never been up to any good and so, we request you not to judge us!)

जीतने का साहस 

आत्मा के लिए अमृत 

सकारात्मक सोच की अदभुत शक्ति 

लक्ष्य !

As we came to the end, the last section was the food guide section. Feeling a bit adventurous on the literary scale we decided to try our hand at this and cooked up the dish we present next.

 

The red market

southern flavours-

fish and shellfish 

the family meal.

An hour and half full of fun and creativity. What an awesome way to spend the day! A maze of books, a camera and the enthusiasm with the perfect person. A day to remember - two to tango at the bookstore.

On an ending note, we thank the staff of Crossword , who without any knowledge of our actions saw it fit to let our efforts go unnoticed as we scampered all across the book sections sometimes with a camera and at other with books. Cheers for aiding our creativity!