Freedom !!

Today... is finally my first day of freedom. All the final year project related stuff is done and all I have to do is sleep. It is just unsettling to know that there is no impending deadline anymore. I just said to my mother yesterday that I want to sleep continuously for a whole week because I could not sleep peacefully for quite a long time, thanks to some really stupid dreams. According to my mother's diagnosis, it was due to "increased brain activity". But well, sleeping soon bores me. Many times, I thought of writing about my final year project as it was quite an "extraordinary" experience in many ways but just could not bring myself to do so, well, because I was busy having that experience and I suck at multitasking.

Working on the project was like walking on friction-less ground. We tried and tried and tried by just could not move forward. It soon became a seemingly pointless exercise of waking up at 6 in the morning, going to my university and then going to AIR university to work in the lab till 7 in the evening and reaching home at half past 8. The only thing that kept me going was the belief that hard work always pays off in the end, in one way or the other. I am still hoping that it will pay off in the way that we want it to as the final result is not announced yet.

I, along with my two group mates, selected this project as a continuation of a project done by our seniors, who had told us that they could not achieve their ultimate targets due to the lack of funding as it required some very expensive hardware. Knowing that, we started looking for funding. We talked to the a senior person in the research department of AIR university and he was interested in the project. He became our supervisor. Now I absolutely don't mean any disrespect. He helped us greatly and at times even did stuff for us that we were supposed to do ourselves and I am very grateful to him. But still I will always remember him as one of the most odd people I have ever met. On our first meeting after deciding that we are taking up the funded project, he told us that we have to learn all about LabVIEW (the engineering tool that we would be using) and run our senior's prototype using LabVIEW within a month, after which the equipment that he had ordered would arrive and we will have to deliver the project within two months. It was the start of February when we had this meeting. So over the next month, we learnt LabVIEW and tried running the old system. But it turned out that it was not a simple task of running an already built system. Along the way, we discovered some major mistakes in their project. Finally, we gave up trying to run their system and programmed the whole algorithm from scratch. After months of efforts, we were able to get good enough results. Now the next step essentially required the hardware that was ordered earlier.

The equipment that was supposed to be delivered in March finally reached us on July 1st, exactly two days before open house where we had to demonstrate the whole project. I don't think I can even imagine now my own anxiety when the delivery of equipment was delayed further and further and we had no clue what to do in the meanwhile except running the the old system with little changes. Without the required hardware, we did not even know whether or not those small additions would work with the real system.

Anyways, when our equipment finally reached us, we had exactly one day left to do whatever we could do. Actually, the project required testing with gunshot sounds. For that we had to go to a Firing Range. Getting security clearance for the firing range is another story. Well, on literally the last day of available time, we took our system for testing after merely replacing the old hardware with new. The equipment with which we were supposed to work with the whole semester was finally in our hands on the very last day and we did not have a clue how exactly it would work. The first time that we ran our system with gunshots, my only reaction was of sheer surprise or may be shock would be more appropriate word. Anyways, after some quick thinking and some guesswork, we were able to run the system. To be really honest, I did not expect that we could get good results in such conditions but we did. We at least had something to tell in the open house next day.

Meanwhile, people from our own university did everything they could to make it more and more challenging ("challenging" is a very nice word compared with what I really want to say). Just 3 days before open house, we were told that we were supposed to design pamphlets and posters. So we spent last days designing and printing and framing, along with all the hassle of going to firing range. After the open house, we participated in a competition, which took two whole days of sitting and waiting for judges and not being able to do anything else. Just two days after that, we had our final presentation. This was the scariest part of the game. We had to present our project in front of the whole faculty of department of electrical engineering and answer their questions. After the presentation we had to write the project thesis in three days and after that getting it printed was not a simple task either (with load shedding and around 20 people at printing shop, each getting 4 copies of their theses printed). I also had my masters interview on the same day that I was getting my thesis approved submission.

Anyways,it is over now. I am free, at least for some time. Everyone at home thinks that I have gone insane because I keep laughing all the time apparently for no reason. But it is a very satisfying feeling that you know that you did your best whatever the circumstances were. Because then, you have the right to expect that you will get the outcome that you wish to have. And I still very strongly believe that efforts always pay off.

Fingers crossed for the final result !