MATLAB, Engineering Graduation etc etc.

After a long time I am posting on this site. I am now learning MATLAB, and it is pretty fun. I learned 'plot', 'stem', and 'stair' for various data visualization. I learned looping techniques and array allocations. Some books say that MATLAB in my CV would be a very good addition, that might boost my career. I am kinda excited about MATLAB.

My syllabus has some numerical methods, and does instructs us to do all those computations using the C language. That might be a bit difficult, compared to MATLAB, but if I practice much I will make it up to some apparent perfection. I have used C most of my programming life, so it would not be much difficult to express the algorithms into program.

The Bayesan Probability and related algebra is exciting! Most exciting is the significance of probability distribution function, which I didn't even try to understand (Keeping the dessert as the last treat).

Graduation in engineering can be very boring, but the concepts introduced can be very exciting if learned properly.

We have the all the great subjects this semester:

• Mathematics (Probability & Statistics, Fourier Series and Transform, Graph theory, Complex calculus)
• Solid State Devices (When the going gets tough, the tough gets going)
• Electronics Instrumentation and Measurement (U know, the transducers and actuators stuff)
• Numerical Methods and Analysis (The mathematics practical)
• Circuit Theory (I have a faint idea what this is)
• Data Structures and Algorithms (Pretty easy stuff I think)

It is fun to try to enjoy the whole engineering stuff...good!

Blinker!

Back on Track!

I did have some trouble figuring out where to put this post. I just put a link there at that blog and writing it here. I went to the Electronics Market there to find out some Motors and other stuffs. I was really happy, that I was going to build something, some proximity sensing self controlled car. The sad part was that my Microcontroller Prototyping Board as I discovered was faulty. I was really dissapointed about that. Pretty Sad, I started planning to build a microcontroller programmer myself and a circuit that could make up my car.

I searched the internet for many home PCB etching techniques, and on I came across methods that uses photo paper method to transfer the toner. It was really a good technique, and after a few days of mental interia, I finally got to work, and transferred the toner beautifully.

And as my post-sem vacation has been extended I am pretty excited about the things I can do in that time.

I will always have a dissatisfied part of me, which will keep me reminding that I was meant for Physics, not Engineering, but some part of Engineering is FUN! That includes these rare moments of success after a gloomy design and planning period.

Aaah! Now I can sleep in a bit peace! :-)

KiCAD: Desiging PCB

I built a NE555 tester PCB, which I tried to make small. It is a great free software, KiCAD. Which let me do design circuits and route them pretty easily on the PCB. I did a manual route... it was great fun. And as tomorrow my maths test, I think I should go now!

Uff!

Sometimes some easy stuff gets into some kind of loop hole, that actually hinders progress of understanding of such concepts. I sometimes fall victim of such loopholes, and I get frustrated very easily by these events.

The last one occurred during my study of saturation mode for a BJT. It is very simple that in saturation mode, both the Emitter and the Collector junction is forward biased, while in active the collector junction goes reverse. That is pretty easy! And as for Germanium it is 0.7 V forward drop, so the Transistor (Ge) will remain in saturation until the Collector Voltage reaches 0.7 volt less that the base voltage. But I had trouble of figuring this out. I had to think about five minutes to get, and browsing franatically on the Net, just to find myself suddenly getting the fact.

New mouse

I didn't really notice, but these days these mouses are very very sensitive and smooth. I bought a new mouse, which is great. And I am still having to practice CS 1.6 a lot.

Something's not right...!

This post is not really about technology.

It's something about IT Company Recruiting process and current trends in technical education and etc etc. Something ironic happened.

As been said by Sayamindu, you can read it here @ http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings/2009/04/29/why-should-i-bother/

Each year, thousands of bright young students get turned into zombies. What a terrible waste… what a terrible waste… - "Why should I bother?" by Sayamindu Dasgupta

I am not going to muse anymore about this, just read that post!