Bro, Don't Study Anymore - Chapter 19

7/18

Problem B had open-source projects available online, making it seemingly easier. Consequently, more people chose to work on it.

However, after completing the basic parts, everyone realized it was a big trap.

Senior Song, who had pulled two all-nighters, moved his coffee and keyboard aside, covered his head with his jacket, and lay down on the table to catch up on sleep.

Little Tang arrived, having nothing to do, and decided to visit other teams in their lab to see what they were up to.

He simply enjoyed watching others struggle with various abstract problems.

Senior Zhang and Senior Li were setting up the hardware circuit.

Little Tang remembered that their hardware was fine when he left yesterday, so he asked curiously: “Senior Zhang, wasn’t your hardware set up yesterday?”

“The attenuator broke,” Senior Zhang said angrily, “It’s like it suddenly fried… Do you have any extra attenuators?”

“No, I soldered three, and none worked. We’re using Senior Shen’s now.”

Senior Zhang pounded the table: “Damn it! The attenuator just broke.”

Senior Li grabbed a breadboard and tried to comfort him: “Try a voltage divider with resistors.”

“…Looks like you actually learned something.” Senior Zhang hesitantly added the module.

After hitting auto on the oscilloscope, Senior Zhang opened the measure tab to check the amplitude, with Little Tang peeking over.

“Damn, it actually works.”

Senior Zhang laughed, patting Senior Li on the shoulder: “Li, you’ve really mastered circuit analysis!”

Senior Li adjusted the input wave parameters, confirming they could achieve the desired function.

He casually tossed the broken attenuator into a drawer: “Voltage dividers are the real deal.”

Senior Zhang cheered: “No wonder you’re Senior Li, lead me in the electronics competition.”

Little Tang echoed: “No wonder you’re Senior Li, lead me in the electronics competition.”

Senior Li leaned back, brought his hands together, and then spread them out slightly before bringing them back again.

He said: “Just practice more if you’re bad.”

Senior Zhang responded with an international friendly gesture.

Little Tang then visited Group B, consisting entirely of freshmen still debugging their hardware circuit.

One freshman, B, was turning the oscilloscope knob with one hand and touching the RF cable connector with the other.

“Is the cable broken? Sometimes when I touch it, it works.”

After replacing the cable, the waveform improved slightly but was still ugly.

Freshman B looked up and asked: “Tang, how did you set up your hardware?”

Little Tang grabbed a stool, sat next to him, and examined their system: “The same as yours…”

“That’s strange, such an abstract problem.”

Freshman B rolled up his sleeves and told his teammate: “Should we disassemble the oscilloscope and use its integrated circuits for evaluation?”

His teammate gave a thumbs up: “Great idea.”

Freshman B lay back like a defeated fish: “I really can’t get it to work, these past two days have drained me.”

Little Tang agreed: “Same here, the attenuator is driving me crazy.”

Their software engineer chimed in: “You think that’s bad? I’m the one being drained.”

“You’re not a software engineer; you’re a farm animal. Now, get back to work.”

The software engineer replied dutifully: “…I’m not even worthy of sitting at the table to eat, huh?”

“Only if you write the code. Hurry up.”

The software engineer pretended to cry: “Mom, I’m being bullied.”

Little Tang laughed: “I wasn’t bullied in middle and high school, but now in college, it finally happened. Haha.”

“Terrifying,” muttered the software engineer, going back to the grind. “The sorrows of software and hardware engineers do not overlap.”

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