Goodbye 2025 and Hello 2026!

 In July 2025, Delhi Government launched the NEEEV Program for Delhi Government schools. NEEEV stands for New Era of Entrepreneurial Ecosystem and Vision and the aim is to develop innovation, problem-solving and self-reliance among schoolchildren.

I came to know about this program in November 2025, when the Head of School of Government Girls Secondary School, Haiderpur - Ms. Parul Gupta contacted me to deliver a lecture  at her school addressing more than 500 girl students from classes VIII, IX and X. Parul is a postgraduate in physics from Delhi University and is very passionate about science pedagogy.

 

 My lecture and demonstration at GGSS Haiderpur was a cracking success and Parul shared information about me with other Delhi Government school HoSs. I immediately got requests from 4 other schools for similar lecture demonstrations - Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Jahangirpuri, Government Girls Secondary School, Majlis Park, Government Boys Senior Secondary School, Shalimar Bagh, and Sarvodaya Co-Ed Vidyalaya, Mukhmelpur. 

 

 

 

 

During these 5 lecture demonstrations, I was able to influence more than 1500 students! 

Subsequently, Parul approached me to conduct hands on workshops for her Class VIII, IX and X students too, which I, together with few of my NSUT students as mentors, did on 9th, 11th and 19th December. 

But let me digress a little bit here. I want to talk about the influence of AI tools in 2025. I have benefited immensely by using ChatGPT - for devising course syllabi, for help in writing few books and even some research papers. But in December 2025, I came across another AI tool - Google NotebookLM and I was totally bowled over! Unlike ChatGPT, NotebookLM works best with content you feed it and it can generate reports, audio and video podcasts, flashcards, quizzes and MCQs based on these contents. The contents could be audio recordings, YouTube links, documents etc. I fed it the YouTube videos of my NPTEL course on Introduction to Embedded System Design  and I could get it to generate textbook style reports, podcasts and MCQs - totally awesome. 

But more awesomeness awaited me - back to the hands-on workshops for Parul's school girls. For these workshops, I curated an inexpensive kit which allowed the girls to perform a few physics experiments - build a homopolar motor and perform activities around this motor, build an electromagnet and perform many activities, experience Eddy current assisted magnetic braking and combustion demonstrations. These workshops lasted 2 to 2-1/2 hours and I recorded the entire audio interactions of couple of these workshops. I then fed the audio recording to NotebookLM and asked it to generate a report. It did so, quite brilliantly. More awesomely, I asked it to create an audio podcast and that too in Hindi! which I then converted to  YouTube videos for larger dissemination. Check it out here and here.

The year 2025 has been very fruitful, not the very least because of the impact of AI tools on our education system. Together with my students, I did many interesting projects which should see the light of the day as published research papers soon. I conducted many workshops for school and college students too. 

The impact of AI tools, I feel is a double edged sword. As I discussed in my talk in a conference organised by Dr. Savita Roy, in the hands of students, these AI tools hold an evil power to dumb them down and totally destroy their learning and lead to academic atrophy. In the hands of educators like me, it can provide a huge effort multiplier. I hope, we the educators can use these AI tools to our advantage and make the best use by utilizing their automation potential and at the same time, guide the students appropriately towards advancing meaningful learning.

 Goodbye 2025 and Hello 2026, I so look forward to what you have to offer!

 

PS: No AI tools were used to write this blog. 😀 

 

Remote Switch

Last week, Netaji Subhas University of Technology (NSUT) was preparing for the Convocation of the graduating batch of 2025. One of the requirements was a reliable and simple interface to trigger the inauguration videos at the hands of the Chief Guest, the Hon’ble Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, who also serves as the Chancellor of NSUT.

I offered to design and fabricate a custom remote switch using the rapid prototyping facilities available at the Centre for Electronics Design and Technology (CEDT). My student, Harshvardhan Gupta, volunteered to take up the fabrication and testing. Within a week, the design was finalized, fabricated, and thoroughly tested.

On 13 December, the device was used by the Lieutenant Governor and the Chief Minister of Delhi in the presence of other distinguished dignitaries.

This outcome was possible due to the strong institutional support provided by our Vice Chancellor,  Anand Srivastava. 

For those interested in the Remote Switch, here are the details. 

 The circuit is really very simple - an Arduino, an HC05 Bluetooth interface and a suitable power supply together with pushbuttons to trigger the switch and LEDs for status. A python script on a laptop received suitable codes from the triggered Arduino and played the requisite video. The breadboard version was tested in a day. 

 The devil was in the details. Which power supply? Which pushbuttons? Which box to enclose it in? 

I wanted to keep the power supply very simple. For that we measured the current consumption of the Bluetooth module. The datasheet says 30-40 mA but in reality, it consumes ~200mA when sending data which is quite infrequent. So, instead of a lithium battery and it's retinue of boost converter, charging circuit, USB interface, I opted for a 9V alkaline battery connected to the Vin input of the Arduino. A good (Duracell) battery has ~600 mAh capacity that would last more than 10 hours in the circuit. 

 Next dilemma was which pushbutton? I didn't want a simple pushbutton that one could accidentally press several times. I decided to use an emergency stop switch. Normally it is used to turn off the power to an equipment or machinery in the case of an emergency, it has to be armed once it is pressed - perfect for our needs. A regular,  large pushbutton was used to cycle through the options for the videos and the selected option was  indicated on LEDs. 

 We found a large IP65 capable plastic box in the lab big enough to accommodate the circuit and some more. The circuit was fabricated on a zero board as there was no time to fabricate a custom PCB. The LEDs were hotglued to the box (not a good idea but works in the short term as a prototype). The decals for the box were 3D printed (thanks to Naman Puri for his help) and stuck with drops of Elfy. 

Once fully assembled, the Remote Switch was extensively tested for range and battery endurance. It was also tested many times at the venue during rehearsal day and the actual day of the event. The anxiety such an event creates, is simply unbelievable. Thankfully, the choices I made for the design and extensive testing it underwent, ensured that it worked flawlessly.

Apart from its main purpose, this project helped me teach the intricacies to a budding engineer and that to me as an educator is deeply satisfying. 

A Silicon Signal Diode (in glass package) works as an IR Photodetector!

Everyday brings some new knowledge and/or 'discovery'.

I was wondering if a silicon signal diode in a glass packaging such as 1N4148 or 1N914 could detect IR signals?

Sure enough! Just treat the diode as an IR photodiode, reverse bias it with DC voltage and convert the reverse current to voltage with a resistor. This setup is also insensitive to visible light.

Here is the proof. This simple set up can detect TV/AC Remote signals!

The circuit to detect IR signals is:

 

The DSO screen capture is here:

 

 Happy Tinkering!

How A Copy Of Electronics For You Magazine And A Postcard Changed My Life.

 In the summer of 1985, I had completed my first year of B.Sc.(Electronics) course at ARSD College, University of Delhi. We were the first batch of this course which was started at four colleges of the Delhi University (ARSD College, Sri Venkateswara College, Rajdhani College and Ramjas College). Being the first batch, no one had any clue about the laboratory experiments and so the first year was boring and totally uninspiring. No wonder, I spent the summer of 1985 doing odd jobs such as working for a market research company and at another time, selling electronics tools to electronics product companies across Delhi but mostly in the Okhla Industrial area. 

Sometime in July 1985, before the next session started, I was browsing books on a sunday afternoon at the famous Daryaganj Sunday Book bazar and I came across a recent issue of Electronics for You (EFY). I clearly remember the contents of the article by L. Jagadhiswar Rao who had a transcript of a something called 'Ham Radio' conversation between an Indian Ham stationed in Antarctica and another in Chandigarh. I did not know what Ham Radio was and I couldn't make much sense of the transcript. This chance reading turned out to be great serendipity. 

  I have not been able to locate that particular article but a similar article by the same author published around the same time frame looks like the following.

As you can see, the conversation contains far too many codes for a normal person to understand. In that particular article, the author urged the readers to look for his articles in previous issues of EFY to know more about the hobby and clubs across India that promoted Ham Radio. I was fortunate that my college had back issues of EFY and I browsed through all of them and found an article by the same author with details of Ham Radio and the said addresses of Ham Radio clubs in India.

On the second page, I found a club listed for Delhi but with a postbox address. I wrote them a postcard evincing my interest in meeting them and knowing more about the hobby. After a few months, I received a printed 'inland letter' signed by one Anand Chaturvedi who informed me about the location of the club (it was located at the erstwhile Appu Ghar at Pragati Maidan in Delhi) and I was welcome to visit them on a weekend as that was the time they all met.

In early October, I paid them a visit and one of the volunteers showed me their club and the radio station. He even turned on the HF transceiver and let me hear the same cryptic, coded conversation except in real time. I came to know that the club was presided over by one Dr. Ahutosh Singh (VU2IF) and it turned out that he was the same gentleman about whom I had read about in the 1985 issue of EFY on Ham Radio by Jagadhiswar Rao! I though this was too much of a coincidence and maybe there was a larger motive and purpose behind this. 

I became a regular member of this club - Amateur Radio Association and met Dr. Ashutosh Singh soon. He turned out to be a great mentor. Although a PhD from IIT Delhi in condensed matter physics, Dr. Ashutosh Singh was interested in building scientific instrumentation. Dr. Ashutosh Singh is one of those rare breed of people who work silently without seeking public approval of their work nor seek stardom through political maneuvering. Apart from mentoring 100s of people like me, he was a (non-governmental) member of the 2nd and 3rd Indian expedition to Antarctica.

I was impressed with all the developmental activities going on at the club (they were building HF and VHF transceivers). Dr. Singh induced me to build a power supply for future Ham Radio projects and I went from a simple transformer + rectifier + filter power supply to one with electronic regulation and fold back current limiting feature. I soon got 5-6 classmates involved in Ham Radio. We all learnt Morse Code (and practiced communicating in Morse in the classroom by tapping on the desk) and appeared for the Amateur Station Operators' License exam conducted by the Wireless Planning and Coordination wing of the Ministry of Communications and got the license in about 1-1/2 years. 

More than Ham Radio itself, I got hooked onto electronics and that love and fascination for building circuits has lasted a lifetime and have had a very enjoyable and successful career around electronics. I have an epiphany that the chance reading of an EFY article and sending a 15 paisa postcard is akin to what people say - when you want something, the entire universe conspires in helping you to get it. 

Today I visited EFY offices at Okhla Industrial Area to take pictures of old EFY issues that I have shared here in this blog and I thank Rahul Chopra, the CEO of the Electronics for You group in facilitating the visit.

Socially Useful Productive Work. A Talking Weighing Scale for the Visually Impaired!

 Making something which is socially useful is always desirable. In my ecosystem, I don't care if I can have a car navigate the roads autonomously, using machine learning. What I care about is a weighing scale that can speak out the weight using a suitable hardware and software. Here is a project we did for helping the visually impaired students pursue science in a meaningful way. Hopefully, it will be adopted by NCERT and scaled for widespread use.

 

Electronics Design Workshop - A Hands-on Course

 This semester (January to May 2022), I am teaching a course titled 'Electronics Design Workshop' to 4th semester students of ECE at NSUT. Incidentally, I had designed the syllabus for this course 2 years ago. Although it was offered for the first time last year, I did not have an opportunity to teach it. Now, I do.

The weekly schedule consists of 2 hours of lectures and 4 hours of laboratory session. Although, while the online classes are on, we do not have the luxury of face to face laboratory experience. 

Here is the syllabus:

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Learning Objectives:

1. To be able to visualize a system/product in terms of hardware and software building blocks using a project based learning approach.
2. Learn useful mechanical and electronic fabrication processes.
3. Learn necessary skills to build useful and standalone system/project with enclosures
4. Learn necessary skills to create print and electronic documentation for the system/project
5. Build, test and document a useful power supply before the mid term.
6. Build, test and document a useful project/system.
7. Learn various debugging tools and techniques.

Unit 1: Electronic component familiarization, Understanding electronic system design flow - visualization of system requirements, time planning using Gantt chart, schematic design and PCB layout, circuit fabrication, soldering and testing, heat sink and cooling for critical components, system wiring, building system enclosure, system testing and debugging, documentation. Documentation using Google docs, Overleaf. Documentation from firmware - Doxygen. Version control tools for documentation as well as firmware release management - GIT and GitHub. Familiarization and use of basic measurement instruments - DSO including various triggering modes, 1X and 10X probes, DMM (including CAT I, CAT II, CAT III, and CAT IV type of DMMs), LCR bridge, Signal and function generator. Logic analyzer or MSO. Bench power supply (with 4-wire output)

 Unit 2: Circuit prototyping using (a) breadboard, (b) Zero PCB (c) ‘Manhattan’ style and (d) custom PCB. Schematic design and PCB layout using EagleCAD. Gerber creation and 3D visualization for fitting. Single, double and multilayer PCBs. Single and double sided PCB prototype fabrication in the lab. Soldering using soldering iron/station. Soldering using a temperature controlled reflow oven. Automated circuit assembly and soldering using pick and place machines.

Unit 3: Electronic circuit building blocks including common sensors.  Arduino programming and use. Getting acquainted with the Arduino IDE and Basic Sketch structure. Digital Input and output. Measuring time and events. PWM. Serial communication. Analog input. Interrupts programming. 

Unit 4: Power sources and power supply regulator design. Linear and switching power supply. Transformerless power supply. Zener regulator, op-amp based regulator. 723 IC regulator. 3-terminal IC regulators. LDO and micropower regulators. Buck, Boost and Buck-boost switching regulators. Short circuit and over-voltage protection. Wireless power supply. USB-PD. Battery types and characteristics. Battery charging for lead-acid and lithium type batteries. 

Unit 5: Mechanical fabrication processes - 3-axis CNC, 3D printing, mini lathe, drilling, Laser cutting, Laser engraving etc.. 3D printing technology - FDM, SLS and SLA. 3-axis CNC operation. 2D file designing for drilling, cutting,  milling, Laser Cutting and engraving using Flatcam, Inkspace, OpenBSP. 3D file designing using Sketchup, FreeCAD, Prusa Slicer.

 

Suggested Reading:

1. The Art of Electronics. 3rd edition. Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9780521809269 
2. Practical Electronics for Inventors. 4th edition. Paul Sherz and Simon Monk. McGraw Hill. ISBN-13: 978-1259587542 
3. Encyclopedia of Electronic Components (Volume 1, 2 and 3). Charles Platt. Shroff Publishers. ISBN-13: 978-9352131945, 978-9352131952, 978-9352133703
4. Building Scientific Apparatus. 4th edition. John H. Moore, Christopher C. Davis, Michael A. Coplan and Sandra C. Greer. Cambridge University Press. ISBN-13: 978-0521878586
5. Programming Arduino: Getting Started With Sketches. 2nd edition. Simon Monk. McGraw Hill. ISBN-13: 978-1259641633
6. Debugging. David J. Agans. Amacom. ISBN: 0814474578
7. Make Your Own PCBs with EAGLE: From Schematic Designs to Finished Boards. Simon Monk and Duncan Amos. McGraw Hill Education. ISBN-13 : 978-1260019193.
8. Pro GIT. 2nd edition. Scott Chacon and Ben Straub. Apress. ISBN-13 : 978-1484200773

Laboratory Activities:

Basically, build a stand alone mini-project using Arduino (or any other microcontroller of your choice), some sensors, displays etc. The mini project should have its own power supply or battery power source. The mini-project should be properly enclosed in lab designed and fabricated enclosure which could be 3D printed or made using CNC machining. The mini-project would have a mandatory documentation report.

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For majority of students who join ECE these days, it's not their first choice. If they could, they would have liked to join some CS course. However, I want to assure them that (a) it's all very much crowded in the CS stream (b) there is no dearth of programming opportunities in ECE subjects (c) at the end of the day,  a computer program needs real hardware to run, even if it's in the cloud. YOU can be that engineer who will build that piece of hardware! 

What do I expect you to build? Well, there are a kazillion things you could build. Here is a sample example. It's an AVR microcontroller based circuit, with it's very own custom designed and 3D printed enclosure. It works in two modes - in one of the modes, it displays the ambient temperature on the single seven segment display (by serially printing the three digit temperature in degrees Celsius) and in the other mode, it generates a random number between 0 and F. In the first mode, it can also be used to generate Morse code by pressing the switch or attaching and pressing Morse key to the Aux connector. You will hear the sound of the Morse code on the buzzer that you can see towards the top of the gadget, next to the red seven segment display.

The black blob next to the Aux connector is the temperature sensor (LM35). If you don't see any microcontroller, don't be alarmed. It's on the other side of the PCB, it's a SMD component - Tiny44. The power to the system is from a USB charger or USB power bank, you see that blue cable?

I am very excited to start the classes from tomorrow. Although, I wish we would get over with this third wave quickly and back to normal, face to face classes, so that my students can get real hands-on experience of building useful electronic circuits and systems.

A 'Teaching Instrument' - Experimental Element of Education during Lockdown.

How to ensure that experimental work can continue in such lock down conditions too?

Here is a paper written by Prof. K V Sane, with whom I had an opportunity to work with, during 1989-1992. The solution is, what he calls a 'Teaching Instrument'.

You may have already realized how the specifications of several instruments in electronics labs are way above their actually utilization. A 1GSPS/100 MHz DSO commonly found in electronics labs, hardly ever gets used beyond 1 MHz.

Today, the cheapest 3-1/2 digit DMM sells for less than Rs. 100. It is not impossible to imagine a 10MHz BW DSO front end connected to your laptop (for the display) for Rs. 250. Thus, it is quite possible to imagine a 'Lab in a Box' with a set of components etc, all for less than Rs. 1000 that may be quite sufficient for conducting experiments at home during lockdown conditions.

Getting a student to build such a 'teaching instruments' will generate an additional benefit of student involvement, skills in soldering, system design etc, which are currently sorely lacking.

 

Parenting an Industry in Engineering Institutes

This is an old idea I thought strongly about in the past, which is making a comeback, at least in my mind. Perhaps, it is the right time to consider it seriously, however crazy it might appear:

"If a medical college must have a hospital to function, why should it not be mandatory for an engineering college to have an industry on campus? For how long would we keep fooling the country that we are engaged in 'blue sky' research? That 'blue sky' research has no term period. Choose an industry of your choice, whatever is needed and beneficial in your region, choose the scale that you can handle. But for your own sake, choose something."

This idea will also address the concern of many academics who often defend the Indian engineering educational institutes and feel they are the victims. However flawed their defense of the Indian engineering educational institutes maybe, this proposal addresses that also.

Also, if you notice, this idea is making a backdoor entry in many engineering institutes in India already - how would you describe the so called 'Incubation Centres' if not a backdoor entry of industry into educational institutes?

However, as currently implemented, the incubation centres are flawed. The engineering colleges which are hosting such incubation centres, do not have their own skin in the game, they are merely working as landlords. They take government's grant money and use their extra space to rent to start ups. That has to stop. The engineering institutes must take larger ownership of these start ups and groom them as their own. And not just to sell off to an established company but to actually manufacture something.