Finding the solution

I have been involved in a Design review meeting for the past 2 days now. There is 2 more days to go before it officially close. The reason behind this long meetings is to sit down with the contractor to work out on a viable design that meets all our purpose. And I do love to make things simpler.

Which brings me to this other story I heard about. During the space race, ball point pen do not work well in zero gravity. The US scientist set out to design a pen that has pressurize ink and better ball points to allow for their astronauts to work in space. The Russian just gave their guys some pencil.

And that reminds me of another story. Lightning protection is essential for any metal structures and expose cables. The danger lies in laying long length of cables connecting one equipment to another across an over space. The longer the distance spaced apart, the higher the potential differences of which the current would flow. (geek talk beware).

The question posed by my lecturer was how to protect this equipments. He was looking for an answer in the line of laying metallic cable trays that would eliminate the potential differences. However when he looked at me for an answer, I simply reply that all they have to do is to disconnect the cables during a lightning storm. I kinda stun him a little.

But thats not all, my colleague bested my answer when he recommend that the equipment use wireless transmission. I applauded.