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Member's Forum What’s the worst mistake/problem you’ve made during a project, and what did you learn from it? We are asking e14 in our Join, Share & Win Competition
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What’s the worst mistake/problem you’ve made during a project, and what did you learn from it? We are asking e14 in our Join, Share & Win Competition

E14Alice
E14Alice 18 days ago

Hello Everyone!

Hope you are all doing well. I’m excited to announce that this month's AskE14 question is: What is the worst mistake or problem you've encountered during a project, and what did you learn from it?

Sharing your experiences can help others identify similar challenges and understand how to overcome them. I hope this discussion will be beneficial for those who are just starting out on a project or feeling stuck with a problem.

Here's the question:

What’s the worst mistake/problem you’ve made during a project, and what did you learn from it? 

imageimage

Competition Details

You'll have to be a member of the element14 Community to join in and take part in this “Join, Share & Win” challenge. It's simple, all you have to do is:

1. You need to make sure you are Register  or Login
2. Then answer the following question by adding a reply or commenting!

What’s the worst mistake/problem you’ve made during a project, and what did you learn from it?  

The Community team will then select the best 3 answers to win a Raspberry Pi 400!

This month, we are giving away:

image

Learn more

Terms and Conditions 

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Top Replies

  • dougw
    dougw 18 days ago +8
    My first rude awakening on the job was building a linear regulator to output 4A at 5V with a car battery as the input. I used a 2N3055 (TO3) as the pass transistor because it could handle 15 Amps and 115…
  • gordonmx
    gordonmx 18 days ago +6
    Many years ago, I worked for a company that made portable computers. A large service company wanted an add-on module base with more battery power to boost the operating life. The original computer had…
  • chloro
    chloro 18 days ago +5
    My worst project mistake? I guess I would say trusting a breadboard connection that “looked fine.” I spent hours debugging firmware, rewriting code, and questioning my life choices… only to find one…
Parents
  • Aniket_kumar_raj
    Aniket_kumar_raj 18 days ago

    I am saying about my school science exhibition that was in november, my school teacher selected 2 students , they had no knowledge of the robotic part but the one of the boy was my good friend so he asked me to help them.

    Since it was a easy and fun way to bunk classes i went to do robotic part during my classes everyday, i even became a friend of the second person who was in science exhibition and was teachers pet (spoiler- i don't like him anymore)

    The title of project was smart dustbin(the project was stelected to be built before i joined so i could not change the project, i knew it was a not very good idea) 

    so only the main part of the build was the wet waste and dry waste segrigator, i completed it  but the another day the wire of the SG90 servo motor got removed from soldering from inside, the second person blamed me that it happened because of my coding and said that due to my code the wire came off the soldering, the price of soldering iron was high than of the servo motor so we decided to buy new servo motor, and again it broke, since the time was less , we bought the servo again, this hapened 4 times and we bought the servo 4 times, the servo mainly broke when the guy we brought for art work tried to stick the components to the dustbin,and everytime my code was blamed.

    They also had no knowledge about connections of wires so i handed that part to but they thaught that i am dumb at connecting wires and this was used again by him to blame me that the wire kept breaking because of me and it started a heated arguement between me and him, he was always proved wrong but never accepted it and always had a arguement with me.

    (by this time i was leading the exhibition even though i wasent th official memebr of it,  told everyone what to bring what to in case of any electrical fault or something, i even became the second largest investor of money by this time)

    but the academic administration team did a big blunder and forgot to register for the exhibition, by this time the project of both school branch was ready, we had a new principal and she removed the administratve person who was required to do redistration from work, she then found out that one of the school 134 km away was cundoucting a exhibition where she called and applied our schools name.

    she said my teacher to select three students who are knowledegable and did most work for this new exhibition, for this my school teacher asked the boy who i had arguement with and he told the name of my friend, his and the art work boy. i was left alone, i talked about it to my teacher on whatsapp and told him that he had almost no involvement in making project nor the art boy had , but he leaking the messages to the boy that i had arguement with which i got to know the next day in school when he started a very big arguement with me ,tthretened me that i dont know him , now i had my hopes out from the school judicial system as the person who was ment to guard me was leaking the messages to his pet.

    one of the thing he said in the arguement was that he brought his laptop, but check the irony that i was the erson to bring my laptop everyday in that month and he brought only the last one day that means i brought laptop almost 96% of the time.

    then i left that argueing with him and i thaught after the exhhibition is over,i will get all my components back,

    but they got 3rd in the exhibiton but gave the whole project to other school branch as a gift(what sort of gift is it even)

    when i asked for my components then they refused and gave me a old broken servo,i asked them where are rest or my compomnents, the arduino, soil most sensor, relay modeul, jumper wires. and they had no answers, this time i talked to my class teacher as everyone in  boys side of my class knew what has happened and hyped me to go the my class teacher as last option, i had no hopes but they forced me, when i exlained everything to my class teacher then she took me to office where the teacher who leaked my message was sitting and talked why i wasent incuded, she insisted for my recgnisition and i had nothing to say at that time ,my legs had freezed and i wassent even intrested in the school politics and wanted the quickest exit from there at that time, i was so much freezed that i could not even say about that arguing boy near them and it ended with that i will get the regognisition as a helper to them, that teacher and his pet started verbal abuse, said i am a begger in hole class and all.....

    now while writing this , i am feeling very diffrently(in sad way). but i learnt that if i am better at somethin then i will never do it for free nor have a attachment for a project whose i am not a part of

    the lesson i learnt - If you are the "Lead Engineer" or a primary investor, never start work until your name is officially on the project documentation. If you aren't on the paper, you don't exist when the trophies are handed out.

    btw here is the images, the green and blue box is the dustbin in the image, the other branch made smart city with we merged out project to.imageimage

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  • dang74
    dang74 17 days ago in reply to Aniket_kumar_raj

    Back when I was in highschool I was in a project with 2 other people.  My job was to edit the video.  This was early 1990s so there was no computer involved.. instead we used a piece of specialized  euipment in the AV room that had a source and destination VHS.  Anyway, I edited about 40% of the video before taking a bathroom break.  When I get back the other guy in my group is doing the editing. I thank him and try to take over but he refused and he ends up finishing the remaining edits, and not to my standards no less.  I took some comfort in telling myself "well at least the assignment is done."  Anyway, the next day at school he tells the third member in the group that I didn't do any work and he had to finish the editing.  I don't care too much about being short changed with credit but at the time being accused of not doing the work really bothered me... so yeah sometimes group dynamics can be tough.  The silver lining is that the teacher, to her credit, didn't get caught up in the fight and gave us all equal marks.... so maybe the moral of the story is I should have taken the washroom break earlier.

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  • dang74
    dang74 17 days ago in reply to Aniket_kumar_raj

    Back when I was in highschool I was in a project with 2 other people.  My job was to edit the video.  This was early 1990s so there was no computer involved.. instead we used a piece of specialized  euipment in the AV room that had a source and destination VHS.  Anyway, I edited about 40% of the video before taking a bathroom break.  When I get back the other guy in my group is doing the editing. I thank him and try to take over but he refused and he ends up finishing the remaining edits, and not to my standards no less.  I took some comfort in telling myself "well at least the assignment is done."  Anyway, the next day at school he tells the third member in the group that I didn't do any work and he had to finish the editing.  I don't care too much about being short changed with credit but at the time being accused of not doing the work really bothered me... so yeah sometimes group dynamics can be tough.  The silver lining is that the teacher, to her credit, didn't get caught up in the fight and gave us all equal marks.... so maybe the moral of the story is I should have taken the washroom break earlier.

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  • Aniket_kumar_raj
    Aniket_kumar_raj 17 days ago in reply to dang74

    "Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes." — William Gibson

    here is one more line 

    "It is better to have a hole in the team than an *** in the team." - Elon Musk

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