When Engineering Goes Too Far

This is electrical engineering comedy gold! The resistor (that gold component) is literally recruiting followers with "JOIN THE RESISTANCE" while the crowd chants "OHMMMMM..." - a perfect pun on the unit of electrical resistance. It's basically a cult meeting for electrons who are tired of going with the flow. Current events in the physics world are getting spicy!

After 40 years in nuclear physics, I can confirm this is painfully accurate. We spent billions on fancy containment vessels and cooling systems just to... boil water. All that nuclear fission, all those enriched uranium rods, the radiation shielding—it's just an elaborate kettle. The public imagines some sci-fi energy beam, but nope. We split atoms to make Thomas the Tank Engine go choo-choo. Next time someone asks about my groundbreaking work in nuclear engineering, I'll just hand them a teapot and say "it's basically this, but costs $10 billion and requires hazmat suits."

Behold! The pinnacle of DIY engineering - a bunch of matches taped together labeled "POLISH FLASHLIGHT"! It's the illumination device that works exactly once and with bonus feature of setting your fingers on fire! The perfect tool for scientists who need light for precisely 3 seconds before everything turns to charcoal. Remember kids, sometimes the brightest innovations are also the most flammable! Next week in my lab: the water-powered hairdryer!

Engineering expectations vs reality in four panels of pure pain! The balloon starts off filled with "engineering college, depression, anxiety, and a single circuits course" facing the funnel of "high school motivation to change the world." Then BAM—reality hits and that idealistic balloon gets absolutely shredded by the engineering curriculum. That final panel is basically every engineering student after their first encounter with differential equations. Dreams: demolished. Self-esteem: in pieces. Coffee consumption: astronomical.

The classic engineering student journey from "ugh, CAD homework" to "I've created a fully-functional nuclear reactor design at 4 AM instead of finishing the simple assignment." Computer-Aided Design starts as this intimidating mountain of software complexity, then suddenly becomes an obsession where you're designing ridiculous contraptions while your actual assignment sits untouched. The progression from reluctance to addiction is painfully accurate - that moment when you realize you've spent 12 hours perfecting the aerodynamics of a theoretical toaster instead of completing the simple bracket you were supposed to model. And the final stage? Pure despair as you realize your magnificent creation cost you the actual grade. The engineering circle of life in six perfect frames.

The corporate engineering bait-and-switch exposed! The top panel shows the noble facade: "We're mentoring the next generation of brilliant minds!" Meanwhile, the bottom panel reveals the harsh reality lurking beneath that mask: "Free labor go brrr." Engineering students thinking they're getting valuable experience while companies are just thinking about their profit margins. The duality of internships hits harder than that first all-nighter before a project deadline.