Ever wrote code which was working perfectly for a while and then just magically stopped working? Well we did. One part of the implementation of our code on the mica2 motes was over by the end of the summer and that was when both I and Josh took a break. When we came back and started getting the implementation ready for a demo it refused to work. It just refused to work. We don't know what the heck happened to it. When we left it there it was working and now it doesn't. We know nobody touched it or messed with it, so what happened to it. There seems to be no reasonable explanation unless we assume that our code was radioactive and it just disintegrated by itself. Josh named it code decay; while we were away our code was rotting.
So there we were, just one hour away from a live demo with a bunch of motes and non functional code on them. We tried everything even hard coding the data "just for the demo" but all we could get was random behavior. In the end we decided to go in with the original code with the hope that it will work. Fortune favors the brave as they say, the code kind of worked, and the presentation was so good (Thanks to my advisor) that nobody noticed the demo. Well it has been crazy last 3 days and I am glad the demo is finally done with. Looking to relax on the weekend and recharge my batteries, hopefully will get the implementation up and running and perfectly fit by next week.
