Ole Bakstad's blog » School

My first electronic gadget: TP cable checker

Ole Bakstad — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:32:04 +0000

Today I went to Omega Verksted at NTNU with the plan to check weather or not a TP cable is working. With some help from Espen Øyby, a friend, I got the design ready. After designing the circuit on the computer we printed it on a special paper, which we then laid on top of the circuit board. A couple of minutes in a powerful light it was ready for acid. When we took it out of the acid and washed of the photoresist I had my circuit board.

The entire thing is a quite simple circuit. It consists of 9 LEDs, 9 resistors, 2 AND port blocks and 2 female RJ45 inputs. After soldering everything together it worked!

If your interested you can see the design layout here.

The grades are in

Ole Bakstad — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:38:31 +0000

Today I got the grade on my last exam. Overall I’m happy with the result. I got three B’s and one D (BBBD).

B in:

Physics
Linear Algebra
Object Oriented Programming (Java)

D in:

Electronic Circuits and Digital Design

Like I commented earlier, the exam in electronic circuits and digital design was one hell of an exam. 40% of the students who showed up failed the course, and ~50% of the students who passed got an E. Seems to me that something was wrong with this exam. See the full statistics here (Norwegian).

My courses next term are:

Two down, two to go!

Ole Bakstad — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:24:25 +0000

Well, as the title says, I’m now done with two of my exams for this term. Today I had physics which went well. I was done in about two hours (maximum time is four hours).

Next up is Linear Algebra with Differential Equations!

Online lectures

Ole Bakstad — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:42:34 +0000

Ever had a crappy professor, missed out on a lecture or just wanted to recapture one? Well, MIT got an ingenious website which they call “MIT Open Course Ware”. Here you can find lecture notes, audio from lectures and best of all video lectures! I’m taking physics this term, and I must say that Walter Lewin is my hero. His energy and passion really encourages you to see the beauty of physics. He teaches the courses 801, 802 and 803 at MIT. The video lectures in Linear Algebra and Differential Equations are also OK to watch.

If you’re a mac or windows user you can find these lectures, and many more, on iTunes U. There you will find lectures and audio from tons of other universities in the USA as well.

Exams

Ole Bakstad — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:07:21 +0000

The exam period is here again. The current status is 1/4. The first exam in electronic circuits and digital design seemed easy after doing tons of old exams, but no. This time they really stepped up a notch, and made one hell of an exam. In other words I’m getting a crappy grade! :(

The next exam up is physics, which I hope will go much better. Lets just hope the professor aren’t ready for change! With change I mean like anti gravity change (read: exam in digital design)!

Exams left after the physics exam is linear algebra with differential equations and object oriented programming (Java).