#EE - Curtains Down

Its been quite some time since I have written about electrical engineering. I graduated in the summer of 2015 (after the Kheerganga trek). The final year project didn't turn out to be the showstopper that we had aspired to create, it couldn't even be called a show for that matter. However, all things done, bruised and battered, I was able to graduate with a respectable score.

The convocation was held in the December of 2016 where the dates tied with my civil services mains exam making me skip the entire celebration. My friends and batchmates were gracious enough to flood Facebook with their photos adding to my misery. I collected my degree a month later - on the 4th of January completing the process of me officially becoming an Engineer! (Three cheers!)

The Degree!

I parted ways with electrical engineering when I began preparation for the civil services. A lot of water has flown in the Ganges since then. I may have become a stranger to the details of the subject, yet am a follower of the same path. Moreover, its an Electrical Engineer that writes now not just another undergraduate.

This concludes the chapter on electrical engineering in my life. I look forward to a more exciting phase in the near future.

Till then, a toast to the subject, electrical engineering!

#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!)

Pick up lines by an Electrical Engineer - The Use-Me-Nots

Many a time one loses oneself in the world of one's work and passion and ends up interlinking it to one's life outside. Though, a guitar slung around the shoulder can bolster your chances at getting a girl ( I think it may be a big misconception, but I owe this observation to the general perception), or a rant in the higher order might score some goodie points, but, adding electrical engineering to flirting (and creating electro-flirting) can be dangerous (in orders of MegaDumboElectroVolts or MDEVs) if you happen to use pick up lines like the ones mentioned below :

#1 You give me shocks just like a 440 V bus-bar.

#2 You are a 1200 KV line girl, you have the potential to be my wife.

#3 Baby your ass is rounder than a motor's rotor.

#4 You are like a 250 W halogen, you brighten my world.

#5 Baby you improve my power factor better than a synchronous condenser.

#6 Are you E.H.V.? Cuz I have corona discharge around you.

#7 I am an electrical engineer, I can fix your sho(r)ts.

#8 Baby are you the secondary winding to my transformer, I feel magnetically coupled to you.

#9 You and I are so perfect, want to make a complete circuit?

#10 If you were a burger at McDonald's, you would be the new McShock.

#11 You are my AA battery, you charge me up.

#12 Baby your hair are like the windings distributed on the armature of my motor.

#13 I think I know the wavelengths you emit, cuz the length of the antenna should be λ/4.

#14 No stock-bridge damper can control me, cuz you darling cause vibrations on 'my power line' like no one else.

#15 You and I - in a cascade or cascode on the silicon bed? You decide.

#16 Can I earth you? You seem to be at a high potential.

#17 You are the cause of my dielectric breakdown, cz you bring sparks in my life.

#18 You are the perfect switch. You turn me on.

#19 You are the resonant frequency to my band pass filter.

#20  Easy on the current darling, the I²R losses leave me weak.

I rest my case!

Credits : Unearthly midnight rantings by N. and me

# EE - Summing Up Two Years

Decisions – the triggers of forks in the journey of our lives. A right decision today could propel you into a successful world and one in the wrong direction can send you tumbling down to the sunken depths of hell.

But wait! Let us lay philosophical doodling aside and come to the discussion at hand – Electrical Engineering – two years gone, two to go (O! God!)

Many have pointed at a small splatter on the pages of my life history, centered somewhere around July 2011. I answer their raised eye brows with a shrug and the hopefully meaningful phrase “’Cuz I wanted to!”

“But why Electrical Engineering? “they press on shamelessly.

And I meet their eyes with a small shrug and move on.

Electrical Engineering - A diverse field of engineering studies that deals with electromagnetic phenomenon and their applications in everyday life.I guess this line just about sums it up. So far, so good. It has been a tough ride, tougher than most (I guess!). The course has been hard to crack and the professors harder (True!) . Though the going has been tough, roughing it has been interesting and fun in itself. Another unfortunate thing that plagues me is the fact that I never seem to score good in subjects I like and vice - versa! It happened in school and hasn't ceased since. But, let us not drift off the beaten path (or rather the path that beat us). Here are some of my experiences with the subjects so far :

#Basic Electrical Sciences

Average. Still the toughest subject in your first year. The simplest laws had me reeling in pain (proverbial). 

#Electronic Devices and Circuits + Linear Integrated Circuits + Digital Circuits and Systems

Interesting. Easy. 

#Network Systems Analysis

Circuit laws back to haunt us again. We thought they were done for good in the first year, yet they resurfaced and BAM took us down again.

#Power Plant Engineering

It takes a lot for us to understand electrical stuff and they shove in thermodynamics and its minions. Good that the subject was easy.

#Electrical Machines (I + II)

It is like WW I and WW II combined with the nuclear bombings and even then you would have to throw more than a million tonnes of TNT everywhere. AC machines, DC machines, static machines, rotating machines- MACHINEESSSS!! (whew, that turned me upside down!). Apart from the blood sucking and flesh devouring monster that it is, the subject is highly interesting, my favorite so far (no marks for guessing my scores in this!). It is truly worth reading and enjoying so far as we do not have exams.

#Control Systems

Highly interesting . The Prof once said that it is quite easy to get a cent percent score in this subject. B%$^ Please ! We could not even manage 50% in the mid sems.

#Power Systems

Only if you are interested. Otherwise a big pain for your existence.

#Electromagnetic Field Theory

It is good! Easy too. But it has a lot of vectors...loads of them. So if you are bad at vector calculus, be prepared.

#Electrical and Electronic Measurements

Nothing to say actually

Reading back, I feel a fresher might never take to his/her heels and never consider electrical engineering after my rantings. Do not worry. I actually enjoy the subject. Though everyone expresses their sympathies with us (it usually happens before the Machines examination), I am proud to say that one day I'll be an electrical engineer.

To this day , I do not regret my decision (though it may seem otherwise).Many a times during the counselling days, people had advised me to go for Computer Science or Civil Engineering. Yet, till date I do not find anyone who ever recommends Electrical Engineering, no one except me! 

One does what one is passionate about. So, choosing electrical was never crazy. It was the best decision I took so far! #EE #YouRock

And I would like to end this post with a word of advice to the commoner :

A lot people say that electrical engineering is dangerous as you have to be near wires that carry current etc etc. For you my friends, true we work with dangerous levels of currents, true that the experiments in the power systems lab have voltages in the order of KVs (that is kilo volts for you!) and true that shocks kill! But, do not worry, all work is done in a safe environment and we are engineers and not unintelligent beings who won't know when to touch a wire and when not to!

So please, do not scare others by saying and I quote verbatim " Electrical toh dangerous hoti hai, isme toh taaron ko chuna padta hai" which translates to " Electrical is dangerous. We touch wires in that."

Honestly, have you heard about insulation i.e. i-n-s-u-l-a-t-i-o-n (Google it)