All in a weekend's work

It's done, my tsunami alert system for my EE2006 project. After wiring according to my breadboard planning, the design finally materialized into the real product and most importantly, it works!! Sweet. Well, of course that's after doing some testing and debugging and re-wiring for a small part of the breadboard due to some errors in my breadboard planning. Alright, now that this one is done, I can divert my attention to other stuff like prep for EE2009 e-test and EE2006 VHDL test, genes and society essay, catching up and doing tutorials..

Some tips for debugging:
- First, check that the Vcc is connected to 5V and ground grounded for all chips.
- Then, check that all input pins of all the chips are connected. If it's not connected to any other chips, it should be either grounded or 5V-ed so that it wouldn't pick up any stray signal and screws up your circuit.
- Use LEDs to confirm that the intermediate signals are as what you expected or to check if the components are working well. Example: I used yellow LEDs (see above pic) to check that my 555 timer and the single pulse are indeed working the way I want them to.
- If something is not right, trace the wires and run the logic in your mind to see if the connection is correct.
- If all is connected the way it should be, then try replacing the chips involved; they might be faulty..
- If all else fails, go back to your xilinx software and run the simulation again to verify. If you happens to discover something that undermines the correct functioning of the circuit at this point in time, I would say that you are quite screwed.