Memory Lane: Circuits

I'm an overachiever a double major in chemistry and physics. One of the classes required of physics majors is an instrumentation course. Basically this course translates into circuit design. The first half of the course was building various circuits using common circuit elements that manipulated the current. There was greater emphasis on the particular designs that gave way to particular outcomes, such as the high pass filter. I remember the professor attempted to teach us circuit analysis using impedance, but he botched the lecture the first day of class and since then no one knew what he was really talking about in the lectures. [1] [2] The first half was ended with designing a circuit that would use a thermal resistor and thus give us an idea of the temperature of the room.

The second half of the course was on microprocessors and designing circuits to utilize the power of the microprocessor. It was two-fold. First, we had to learn the assembly language of the microprocessor used. Then, we had to understand the architecture of the microprocessor. This sequence ended with a project that was to build a circuit with a microprocessor that would determine the current of the thermal resistor and display on an LCD the temperature of the lab.

I have fond memories building rat nests in this class due to the random lengths of wires my partner often had fetched for me. [3] The following pictures I found on my phone are not one of the rat nests, unfortunately. Also unfortunately, I don't recall what this circuit does. Nor am I going to figure it out before I've had my coffee. Feel free to analyze it for me. There will be a bonus quiz after lunch.



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[1] And the seminal book, Horowtiz' and Hill's Art of Electronics, was too intimidating and boring to drudge through just to understand circuit analysis, a concept we were never tested on nor expected to comment on in our lab reports.

[2] When I mean botched, I mean he lectured us for a month one way, and then found out he was incorrect for an entire month. Welcome to my undergraduate career in physics ;-)

[3] My lab partner, who is my best friend and current roommate, was probably the worst lab partner I've had at LSU. This includes the pre-med who stuck a very hot round bottom flask of various organics into an ice bath to "quickly cool down" the reaction so she could make her hair appointment...GRRRR, pre-meds!!!