Running on the theme of DT... but with a hint of Geek
Back when I was taking my GCSE's, I had myself a wonderful Commodore Amiga 500. I worshipped the code it ran on, chuckled everytime there was a Guru Meditation Error, and gazed in wonder at the naughty 3.5" floppy disks of pron my friends in school had somehow aquired. So what better way could I show my devotion to my god, than to free it of it's plastic case, and build it a custom tower case, with additional inbuilt motion detecting alarm.

The design of the whole system was beautiful yet simple. The Amiga would stand on it's expansion slot, with a custom built PCB to allow the expansion slot to be pointing horizontal to allow for my external 40MB harddrive I had. The alarm circuitary was a work of art, it worked off of a battery which charged whenever the power was on, had a key which simultaneously turned off the alarm and powered the Amiga.

The A3 sheets we had to use to demonstrate our progress through the system again was simply genious (if I do say so myself). I had managed to get our plotter to correctly render the Commodore C= logo, and the Amiga logo after painstakingly drawing all of these out by hand on the dodgy Corel Draw v -666.

So after drawing up a fantastic PCB for the alarm/powersupply, I went down to Maplins, and with a kind loan of £45 from my parents, promptly bought all the items required. It was about now that I started to realise, that maybe I might not be quite so clever at electronics as I had thought.

I spent weeks and months labouring over this circuit. Redesigning it, tweaking it, but all the while, never working. I'd managed to blow a couple of transistors along the way, gotten too many electric shocks from the mains transformer I was using, and probably gave myself brain cancer from all the soldering smell.

Infact, so much time I had devoted to this alarm circuit, I had completely neglected the actual metal tower case. I had built a part of a frame, but it was all twisted and I wasn't quite happy. I bit the bullet and decided to do away with the tower idea, and simply have an alarm system for a computer, that could be plugged inline to a standard Euro Socket, so I set about building a smaller wooden box, with a 2-tone Piezo sounder, wonder key for setting, resetting the alarm, tilt sensor, lifting sensor (a small switch on the floor of the device, which gravity would keep pressed down), and plenty of air vent holes on the back.

When push finally came to the shove, it just didn't work. Nada, nothing. I had managed to build an AC-DC convertor and that was about it. I still soldered everything else to the PCB to make it look like it was all there. I then wrote in my construction notes, that I had hit upon a snag near the end, and was working through the final problems before getting it fit for release". Even back then I knew the Management BS that would get me through life.

End result. I got a B! Fuck knows how. But then, don't get me started on my dissertation project that wouldn't run when I demonstrated it, and I still got a 2.1 mark for it!
( DavyBoyInGravyJoy Grey Goose Vodka on Ice, nothing finer, Mon 17 Aug 2009, 11:03, 3 replies)

For my GCSE technology main project (in 1993)
I made an infra-red joystick for my Amiga.

It didnt work (like every circuit board I have ever made). I got a C and never touched electronics again.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Mon 17 Aug 2009, 11:35, closed)

Much like mine, really.
Although in my case, it was stolen. Which was odd.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Mon 17 Aug 2009, 12:01, closed)

A guy at school
couldn't get his Standard Grade (GCSE) Technological Studies project to work- even using breadboards (which tested out okay), with people helping him and with all of his components checked out as working individually. Just couldn't get it.

So he wrapped the lot up in electrical tape and, when asked for a demonstration by the teacher, gathered a group of people around to watch the "historic first trial" of his fantastic system. He said a short spiel about it being a fantastic thing, able to do this and that (though sadly with this limitation), stepped up to the desk and confidently flicked a switch.

Nothing happenned

He feigned puzzlement

He flicked the switch a couple more times

Feigned embarassment was now spread over his face.

"Oh, it worked last time!" declared the master trickster.
"Well, you could explain it so I'll believe you" conceded the teacher.

The lucky showman-bastard passed!

I looked at the untaped version after school and it turned out he'd taped a few wires and components to a breadboard. They weren't even connected.

This guy now flies passenger aircraft for a living...
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Mon 17 Aug 2009, 12:23, closed)