Unfiltered Story #281048

I’m enrolled at an engineering college and am currently taking a general Physics course. At present the class is going through a unit on the physics involved in electricity.

Today the class is assigned the task of constructing proof-of-concept circuit boards based on what we’ve learned. My group has finished slotting everything in but when we turn the power on nothing happens. Thinking a component might be loose, I lean forward to take a closer look.

There’s a popping sound like a cork from a champagne bottle and suddenly the right lens of my glasses are coated with the innards of an improperly installed capacitor. We had accidentally flipped it around and, having left the power to the circuit on, caused it to fail critically.

There’s a brief moment of stunned silence as everyone else in the classroom turns to look at our group. This ends when a student yells “Mazel tov!” and the entire class breaks into laughter.