My IQ has been increasing year by year.

The moment the whistle fell.

A chaotic and violent clanging of metal erupted throughout the venue.

The clasps on dozens of black metal boxes were pried open at the same time.

The base is a single piece of black anti-static sponge.

The sponge has grooves carved out, each containing several finely crafted finished components.

There are four palm-sized miniature solar panels covered with a polycrystalline silicon coating, reflecting light under the overhead lamp. There are two miniature wind turbines with streamlined white plastic blades and a smooth-looking central shaft.

There are also several high-sensitivity piezoelectric ceramic sheets with metal leads and terminals.

At the worktable next door, a few boys from a team from another province were already getting excited.

"Get the solar panels!"

A boy said loudly.

"The entire ceiling of the venue is covered with these lights; the brightness is more than enough. Take out all four panels and connect them in series!"

"Bring out the wind leaves too."

Another said.

"I just saw an exhaust fan on that wall over there. We'll set up a frame to blow air onto it later."

Many teams around the area reacted similarly.

The sounds of wires being pulled out, plastic bags being torn open, and discussions about how to set up the scaffolding mingled together in the spacious venue.

The pre-packaged components at the top level have become the first choice for the vast majority of teams.

Harvesting environmental energy, solar and wind power are the most obvious ways to do it.

The worktable of the Jiangsu Provincial Team.

The metal box has been fully unfolded.

Wang Huashao saw the top few solar panels and reached out his hand.

His fingers just touched the blue edge of the outermost panel.

"Don't take that yet."

Chen Zhuo's voice rang out from the side.

His tone was calm, and his volume was not loud, but it was enough for the people around the table to hear him clearly.

Wang, who spoke little, stopped in mid-air.

He turned his head and looked at Chen Zhuo with some confusion.

"What's wrong, Captain? Aren't you going to get solar panels? Look, everyone else is setting them up. The lights in the stadium are so bright. Isn't solar energy readily available?" Chen Zhuo's gaze didn't fall on the solar panels.

He pointed to a corner in the upper right corner of the worktable.

There was a very inconspicuous transparent plastic resealable bag there.

It's only the size of a palm.

The bag contained an ordinary red light-emitting diode with two thin metal leads.

There was a white label next to it.

A line of small black text was printed on it:

Rated operating voltage: 2.5V, operating current: 20mA.

Chen Zhuo withdrew his hand and looked at the dark blue panels on the top layer of the metal box.

"The lights on the roof of the venue are at least ten meters above the ground."

"The illuminance of light decreases quadratically with increasing distance, so when it hits the table, there aren't many photons left."

He looked at Zhou Kai.

"Under this kind of attenuated scattered light, the open-circuit voltage of this miniature polycrystalline silicon board will not exceed 0.5 volts, and the short-circuit current will be only at the microampere level."

"The same applies to the blades of wind turbines. The exhaust fans and air conditioners in the venue are too far away, and the breeze they blow cannot overcome the static friction resistance of the rotor, so the rotation speed cannot be increased."

Chen Zhuo looked at the question on the screen.

"The research topic is the collection of weak environmental energy."

"A 0.5V input is used to light up a high-brightness LED with a dead zone voltage of around 2V and a rated voltage requirement of 2.5V." "There is a voltage gap of at least 2V in between."

"The voltage generated by the items placed on top by the organizing committee is simply not high enough to exceed the threshold of the diode under the current lighting and wind conditions."

No matter how many times the series circuit is connected, the internal resistance will increase exponentially, eventually preventing even the flow of current.

Chen Zhuo walked around the corner of the worktable and stood directly in front of the box.

His hand went straight past the top layer of components that looked very high-end.

He pulled open the bottom layer of the metal box.

There were no neat rows of anti-static sponges, nor any exquisite finished modules.

There was only a bunch of loose items packed in ordinary transparent resealable bags.

It looks cheap.

"What we need to do is not to compete on the absolute amount of energy collected."

Chen Zhuo's hands rummaged through the resealable bags.

"What we need is to maximize the voltage; if the environment can provide 0.2 volts, we will increase it to 2.5 volts."

He pulled out several bags from the bottom layer.

It was thrown onto the wooden table.

A small roll of very fine enameled wire.

A green ferrite magnetic ring, only the size of a fingernail.

Two black, square semiconductor cold plates.

A typical NPN triode.

Several color-coded resistors with different resistance values.

"We're going to make a self-excited oscillation boost circuit," Chen Zhuo said.

The people around the table were looking at the loose items.

"Zhou Kai, are you going to calculate the optimal turns ratio for the high-frequency transformer?"

Chen Zhuo began assigning tasks.

"He Gui, could you please wind the thread? The thread is very thin, so be careful."

"Wang, go get the breadboard and set up the external test circuit."

"Never mind what the other teams are doing. For the next four hours, we'll focus solely on this one system."

Chen Zhuo turned to look at Miao Shi'an and pointed to the pile of loose color-coded resistors and multimeters.

"Shian, you're in charge of quality control and data. Who knows what the parameters of the components the organizing committee gave us are? Remeasure the actual parameters of all the resistors and transistors, calibrate the errors. When we build the circuit later, not a single component that you approve is allowed to be put on the board."

The four boys immediately sprang into action.

Zhou Kai took out draft paper and a black pen from his bag, glanced at the permeability parameters marked on the ferrite magnetic ring, and began to write equations while leaning on the table. He Gui took the coil of enameled wire, took a deep breath, and began to think about how to start winding the two wires together.

Wang Huashao took a white breadboard from the second shelf of the toolbox and began to connect test jumpers and pins to it. Chen Zhuo stood by the table, mentally reviewing the entire circuit topology.

Lin stood at the very edge of the worktable.

She watched Zhou Kai fill the paper with formulas, watched He Gui carefully pinch the tiny magnetic ring, and watched Wang Huashao poking around on the breadboard.

She waited for a while and found that Chen Zhuo had not assigned her name.

Lin Yi pulled over a steel pipe folding chair that someone else had left behind.

"Is there nothing else for me?" She glanced at Chen Zhuo. "Then I'll go sit for a while."

Chen Zhuo turned his head and glanced at her.

He reached out and picked up the coil of enameled wire from the table, pulling out a section of it.

I rummaged through the bottom of the toolbox and found a small piece of fine sandpaper for polishing the pins.

Chen Zhuo walked up to Lin Yi and handed her the piece of thread and sandpaper.

"You can sit down."

Chen Zhuo pointed to the chair.

"This roll of wire has an insulating enamel coating. You need to use sandpaper to carefully scrape off the ends of the wire that we'll be using later."

"The pressure must be even; you must not break the copper core inside, nor leave scratches that would affect conductivity."

"Keep scraping until it's all used up."

Lin Yi looked down at the thin thread in his hand.

I took another look at the sandpaper that was slightly chipped.

She didn't say anything, but simply took her things, walked to the chair, and sat down.

Gently scrape outwards following the direction of the line.

Time passed by, second by second.

The atmosphere inside the venue became somewhat polarized.

Many teams around were busily setting up large installations.

Someone built a tall frame using wire and plastic pipes, fixed four solar panels on it, and adjusted the angle to face the light source at the top.

Someone ran to the wall, trying to figure out how the huge exhaust fan could draw the air in.

There were sounds of talking and walking everywhere.

The area in front of Chen Zhuo and his colleagues' workstations was very quiet.

There are no large structures on the desktop.

There were only a few lines, a few small parts, and a piece of draft paper covered with formulas.

He Gui bent over, his face very close to the table, holding a magnetic ring in his hand, winding the wire around it round and round.

Zhou Kai's pen never stopped moving.

Lin Yi sat in the corner, head down, in the same position, slowly scraping off the paint.

In this huge factory filled with the sounds of metal clashing and noise.

The six of them sat around the table, each doing what they were doing.

There was no extra communication, only the occasional sound of pen tip gliding across paper and the slight noise of sandpaper rubbing against enameled wire.