Although an integral part of a BITSian’s life, the bells which indicate the starting and ending of classes are rarely given a much thought. Mr. Yadav—senior technical assistant at the electrical machines lab—spoke to EPC about how the bell system works.

The Institute has two separate bell systems, the one which rings in all the Faculty Divisions, LTC, and Workshop, and the new NAB bell system. Although NAB has been operational for over four years, the current bell system was installed only in 2016.

The Institute bell system has undergone significant changes in the past few years. The FD bell architecture, which has now become obsolete, was designed and programmed by the college staff three decades ago. After a recent, irreparable glitch, it was upgraded to resemble the system in NAB. He mentioned that the Goa campus has an IP-based circuit which runs entirely online, but Pilani chose to go with the current system instead, as the former can result in frequent asynchronous ringing. He also mentioned that the bell is completely automatic and various schedules like midsems, weekday classes, and holidays have been accounted for in the programme.

Mr. Yadav mentioned that an attempt had been made to ensure that both the bells sound the same, but it required cables to be installed underground, which was needlessly expensive. Skirting around this issue, they chose to go with an entirely separate tone for NAB. All the pre-recorded ones were deemed unsuitable, which even included a robot voice that said, “The class is now over”. After failing to find a better tone on the internet, the staff settled for the current one.

Addressing the occasional delays with the ringing, he said, ‘Some system errors creep in every couple of weeks, which are corrected directly through the NAB network.’ The duration of the bell is currently ten seconds for the short bell and fifteen for the long one. Mr. Yadav mentioned that the staff is open to feedback from students and faculty regarding the duration and one may approach the Instruction Division for the same.