My first project ever after completing my embedded engineering degree was building an interface like this. It was for medical washing machines that are used to

My first project ever after completing my embedded engineering degree was building an interface like this. It was for medical washing machines that are used to clean/sterilize endoscopes. After each run, the machine would print a report containing temperatures, etc, that would have to be analyzed by the medical staff to assess if the endoscopes were safe to use on patients. I designed and build an interface board for LPT to an ARM SBC (Raspberry Pi didn't exist yet, IIRC). And wrote some C code that would convert the line levels to characters, and output it to a TCP connection. On the other end of the connection there was a server which would store and parse the output of the washing machine. This allowed us to develop a simple green/red indicator via a web interface, so all staff could see it, without having to physically get the piece of paper that would have been printed. Pretty neat experience as a first-ever project for an employer. And even getting paid for it! I just checked the website of the company I build that interface for, and they still sell it! :-) All in all, I'd guess that it took less than 1 week (40 hours) to develop.