Undergraduate / My playground was a jumble of old circuit board, electric wires and many electronic components [4]

Essay on a Personal Activity/Talent

Sitting in my room with the prototype of my robot and laptop in my lap, I gazed frantically as the progress bar increased percent by percent till it finally said "UPLOAD COMPLETE". Being over enthusiastic I set the wheels on the ground, grabbed the controller and BOOM! Nothing happened it did not even twitch. All the zeal and hope had gone with the wind as the clouds of disappointment set upon. It felt like I lost a battle; looking at the creation hopelessly, I wondered what could have probably gone wrong, was it the coding I wrote or something in circuit in designed. Little did I know at the time that the most disappointing moments of my life was soon going to be the most memorable day of the year.

As a ninth grader, few days before New Year I was walking in my porch, checking news on my mobile. As I swiped across many articles of latest technology, best to buy smartphones and reviews of amazing laptops, I came across a heading which said - "Honda's new Asimo robot can run, jump and sing". News headlines are made to catch your attention but I was awestruck by this one. I immediately clicked the link and spent days reading every article and news blog I could find on it.

The grandeur of robot left me with such an impression that I made a resolution to make my own robot before next year comes to an end but there was just one tiny problem, till this day I had no experience and formal knowledge about either the hardware required or the software to make such a machine. But the obsession of robot was so fierce that I learnt a new Programming language - Python and read hundreds of E-books and articles just to make my dream come true.

As Paulo Coelho rightly said "When you want something the entire universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." By Diwali I had already tested my prototypes with all the different sensors and basic functioning. BUT the big game was still left - combining all the functions together! I had less than a month to complete it so I rushed to make final design and this was one of the reasons that when it did not work the first time I was more than just disappointed. I checked and then double checked all the coding and wiring but I could not find the bug. It is hard to find mistake in one's own work but sometimes the solution to the biggest problem is in the easiest way; however, in my case it was a rather a inadvertent one- "battery of the robot was discharged". Once I charged the batteries my humanoid robot not only walked but also all the functions and sensors worked perfectly!

Ever since my childhood I have been fascinated by technology and wanted to know how and why things worked the way they did. How did my RC car work? What is inside the camera? I was never satisfied with the simple answers my parents gave me to these questions. Hence, I discovered many for myself by exploring and experimenting. My playground was a jumble of old circuit board, electric wires and many electronic components which would usually come from one of devices that had intrigued me to open it up. I spent hours disassembling and tinkering with amazing treasures I found. Things sometime intrigued me to such an extent that if I did not find screwdriver of the right size I remember using my steel scale and pointed knife to get screws out of my way to make new discoveries. I still remember the feeling of satisfaction of opening the device up, but the satisfaction was to another level when I finally understood its concepts and functioning.