Prototyping in Pandemic
Premise: The pandemic has made it into 2022 and we still have not adjusted ourselves to the work-from-home lifestyle and the online meetings. However, as the number of COVID cases increase, the fear of the virus decreases. People across the globe have greeted the latest wave with waving hands, telling the virus that we just don’t care anymore; however, here we are, still living in the dread of quarantine and primary contacts with every COVID-positive case on the IIT Gandhinagar Campus – not for the first time, not the second time, but the third time. It’s almost like a déjà vu! This is a story about my déjà vu.
It was one of those fine winter mornings – the sun slowly rising above the horizon; the rays making their way through the fading fog to warm us up amidst the continual chilly winds that pierced through our hoodies. Yet our lifeless walk, exhausted faces and blood-red eyes made it evident that it was never going to be a fine morning for us It was a night out for the four of us, not in a club or at a friend’s house, but in Tinkerer’s Lab – our assigned workspace – fitting ball bearings in acrylic links and using Arduino codes for our control system. Not an ideal night out, I know, but we were used to it. We chose the name “6th Sem Flashbacks” for our team. And there was a reason, a story behind it. Since December 2020, I have been quarantined 4 times in 13 months and 34 days of my life were spent in quarantine. Running our clocks ten months back, we distinctly remember being assigned our first project of the semester – the 6th semester. As we made our plans for watching an T20 International Match in Ahmedabad, the second wave of COVID-19 was about to crash on us like a lightning bolt.
On March 9, 2021, I was identified as the primary contact of my friend who tested positive, and I was moved to quarantine for the next 14 days. That was just the beginning of my quarantine streak. I distinctly remember the protocol to this date. The primary contacts were to be tested on the 7th day and if found negative, they would be released on the 10th day of the quarantine. I satisfied both the criteria and was released from the quarantine cage ten days later. On April 8, 2021, my entire class of Mechanical Engineering were tinkering in the Tinkerer’s Lab, working hard and long and late in the night for their respective projects. The next day, we all met each other; only this time, it was in the quarantine hostel. Apparently, one of our classmates came out to be positive and the entire batch had to lock up, as we were trapped inside the lab a day ago by the obligation of completing the project. Not even a month later from my first quarantine was I quarantined the second time. It was this second quarantine that began to frustrate me.
Days were dull and nights were long, and neither of them were productive. There was too much work to do and yet I felt like doing nothing. Classes felt a burden and learning seemed to be pointless. The floor was damp and the atmosphere was depressing. The possibility of the virus being inside my body was killing me from the inside.
The worst feeling during the entire quarantine period is the day we have to give our Rapid Antigen Test (RAT). Waiting for the results after giving the test sample was the most nerve-wrecking.
The mail that showed first signs of trouble
An insta post appreciating our hard work despite the pandemic and the quarantine and anxious moment in my life. Never had I felt so terrorized as I was on that day. We were standing outside our quarantine rooms, right at the door, waiting for the list of the names marked with “P” for positive. We called it the “Schindler’s List” and “Maut ka Farman” among our friends. Everyone joked around with a hesitant smile, worrying about their names being marked on the Schindler’s list. It was probably the only time I did not want things to go positive for me. And luckily enough, it didn’t.
The online meeting right after the entire batch was quarantined
After a couple of days from the “test” day, I saw one of my friends working in his room. I had seen him working even before the test, with the same dedication. I instantly became curious as to what kept this guy going even in such a difficult time. And in the next second, I felt insecure. Was it just me who felt this way? Was it just me who was not able to work all this time? I decided it was better to ask and know and try to work than to not ask and not make any effort to work. When I asked him the question, he replied, “Work is work. You are never out of work. You are only out of time. And if I cry over a virus that I don’t even know has affected me, I will surely have a heavy loss of time and therefore, I will not be able to do my work on time. Let’s say you rest 2 days in the quarantine. That’s fine. How long do you want to continue that? 10 days? 14 days? What if it was self-quarantine for the entire semester? Would you risk all your studies for the fear of the virus? All you can do is take precaution and work. That’s why we take precaution, because we know we are at risk. What you want to do is ignore that we are at risk and hope that anything will not happen. In the process, all you are doing is worrying about and hoping for something that is not in your hands. At most what you can do… is work. And that’s what I am doing.” His words felt so true and yet so unreal for me at that particular moment. It took me another four days to get that into my mind. It was when I came out of the quarantine that I realized it had been too long for some of the deadlines that I had to finish. I felt the pressing need to take them up and work them off. I managed to do it all and do it good enough to get me my A’s and A-’s, but I learnt something more than that. I learnt a new phrase, a quote – “We are never out of work. We are only out of time.”
The socially distanced gathering in-between the quarantine days
It took many iterations, a dozen MDF sheets, long hours of 3D printing and a lot of determination to finally complete the project. The ball was 3d printed, the beams (made out of MDF sheet) were laser cut, while the sensors and IR camera were controlled by a software named “Arduino” installed on my laptop which gave us feedback on the position of the ball on the beam. However, the most important component was the “Super Glue”. It held our project together, both literally and metaphorically.
An insta post appreciating our hard work despite the pandemic and the quarantine
Cut to the present moment when we were walking in the so-called fine winter morning, I looked at my friend who was walking besides me and all these quarantines came back to me, the flashbacks screening on the inside of my eye. I thought I was having deja vu until I felt a bit different. I felt relieved in some sense. I felt grown up. I realized that I should better work than worry. Better study than sleep. And then, here I am, working an entire night out for my project, without fearing the consequences of what might happen to me and focusing on what I ought to do. That morning, we got to know that one of the members of the lab was quarantined because of her roommate being positive. Guess what? I still worked that morning. `
My project partners standing with the project
The morning we still worked with the prototype that we made
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