I studied electrical and computer engineering in college. One of the classes was a hardware/software codesign class. There was a graded lab component, i.e. We

I studied electrical and computer engineering in college. One of the classes was a hardware/software codesign class. There was a graded lab component, i.e. We had to design and build a circuit for the given purpose, hook it up to a bare-bones computer w/ a 68K chip and write assembly to drive the circuit and pass a set of tests. Each lab was typically booked as 2 3-hour sessions (one session per week). I lived off campus, and the commute was about an hour, in good traffic, so I wanted to minimize the number of times I had to go to campus. Unlike the students that lived on campus, I was methodically prepared walking into the first session. I'd probably have spent 6-8 hours on a weekend working on the lab. I was meticulous. I designed the circuit using Visio (obviously can't simulate, but I was concerned with layout), so I had precise diagrams of the circuit. My diagrams matched the layout of the bread board, and my physical implementation was clean (wires were always just as long as they needed to be and never longer). I could take the diagram and literally check off wires as I placed them (and my wiring was clean). I had my 68K assembly written ahead of time and was generally bug-free, though some debugging was needed from time-to-time. I was generally in and out of lab in 15 minutes of what was supposed to be a 6 hour session. After a few rounds of this, my TA suspected I might be cheating and he walked up, ripped out a bunch of random wires from my circuit and told me to fix it. I chuckled, said ok, and I pulled out my design, replaced the wires and checked them all off, plugged it back in and it passed. He was dumbfounded. He sort of had a "Wow, a student that's actually prepared for lab for once" kind of look on his face. He never bothered me again. I think the TA was doubly surprised because I also had a habit of obviously sleeping during lecture, dead center in the front row.