Ah yes... Them...
Wind your minds back to the heady days when the digital computer was operated by a chap wearing a collar with wings to make an airliner jealous. When the government was run by a woman slighly more right wing than hitler. When health and saftey meant putting your fag out before sprinkling highly inflamable weedkiller onto playgrounds.

The young Duke was in the Design and Tech labs, putting the final touches to the carefully drawn engineering diagrams required to submit a design for an A-level D&T project. A 12th scale reproduction of a twin cylinder marine steam engine.
Why ? Because I like shiny brass and steamy pipes, I'm just that kind of guy.

Deadline day, hand the folder to the course overseer , Steve "interesting" Titlow, and was promptly told that I'd wasted the last month doing the drawings (with him looking over my shoulder making corrections to the design) as the school had no suitable brass bar in stock, and no I couldn't order it.
Get out, think of a new project and start again.

Brief wander round to find out what other people were building* and I get told that a telecope didn't require enough "construction" a series of wooden automata as per these demonstrated no technical skill, and a model boat hull was too difficult for an A-level project.
So I asked what did he suggest, and was told "A robot, every year some idiot tries to build a robot, and they always fail. I reckon that's right up your street."
Oho, thinks I. A challenge!

So, having a passing realisitic idea of what kind of robot I could actually build, and a fair knowledge of simple electronics, I began.
Perspex body, two driven wheels with optical encoders to track distance, and bump sensors front and rear made a mobile chassis. A z8 microcontroller for a single chip programable brain and we're ready to play. But the piece de resistance, the thing that made my robot special. A steerable gripper arm attached to the front of the chassis. Oh yes, my robot could pick things up and carry them.**
Take that, Turtle!

Being a vastly simpler piece of kit than the steam engine I had the thing physcialy built well inside the deadline, still some bugs in the "find the ping pong ball and bring it home" program by the time the day came but the machine worked well enough.

Mr Interesting was, of course, less than chuffed. Where was the failure he predicted, where was the half arsed attempt at an android he thought he'd stuck me with? All he could see was a little white rectangular box that crawled slowly around the desk and went beep every so often. But since the lab techs had marked my actual course work as acceptable there was nothing he could do to prevent me turning the project in to the examining board.

Two days later, we all slouch in to the lab for one last session boxing up our toys to send them off to the temple of tweed jackets, leather elbow patches, and foul smelling pipes that is exam headquarters.
In to the locked room where these things were kept between lessons, to find on my section of the shelf two sections of little white plastic box. Neatly, oh so neatly, sawn into two exactly equal pieces, right down the centre of the processor chip.

Two lab techs utterly livid, me confused and upset, Steve Interesting Titlow quietly smug.

"Told you you'd fail if you built a robot. Can't say I didn't warn you..."

Cunt.

*Some body panels for a robin reliant, a camera tripod, an electric guitar body, a new case for a computer, and a chess set still stick in my memory
**May include randomly dropping on floor.
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 19:01, 11 replies)

What a Cunt....
I hope you gutted him with a rusty spoon
(The_Mighty_Spleen, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 19:25, closed)

He did fucking what?
That's disgraceful; why didn't you report him?
( Maladicta, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 19:28, closed)

(shrug)
The assumption was that it was another student playing a jolly prank on the poverty stricken vagabond who was only allowed into the school on some form of scholarship thingy and was thus not a big issue.

I was too stunned at the time to even think straight, and if I'm honest it didn't even occur to me until some while later that only a few teacher types had access to the room and to the bandsaw.

Hey Ho. Could have been worse, least I didn't end up accidentally stabbing myself in the gut with a chisel like one of the other students.
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 19:57, closed)

That is
utterly, unspeakably appalling. What happened to your grade, did you pass?
Cuntish D&T teachers seem to be a theme this week, and I shall say to you what I said to...someone else whose name escapes me. Hunt them down and violate them with a big fuckoff chunk of splintery wood.
(berk, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 20:04, closed)

Not as such
I was basically told that as my project was wrecked there was no point even sending it off to be marked.

Managed to scrape a D just on the exam mark.
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Fri 14 Aug 2009, 19:01, closed)

Track him down.
Steal his car.
Get busy with a circular saw.
Return both halves of car, place neatly in driveway.

We'll help.
(The Incredible Sulk Finally remembered his password on, Fri 14 Aug 2009, 0:10, closed)

Indeed.
I can borrow a tow truck and a circular saw.

Let's do it ;)
(Flap Burger hasn't really got a burger made of flaps, Fri 14 Aug 2009, 9:23, closed)

This^,
A thousand times this.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Fri 14 Aug 2009, 12:34, closed)

I'm with this suggestion...
And will gladly help - I'll even bring my own grinder :)
( snee held his breath since, Fri 14 Aug 2009, 12:41, closed)

Tempting...
Might take a bit of hunting down, this was, what, 20 odd years ago...
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Fri 14 Aug 2009, 19:03, closed)

School should have teacher records they might release.

With a name and a rough age it's pretty easy to track down a few candidates.
(Scritty Bakerman., Sat 15 Aug 2009, 9:24, closed)