TLDR

This project taught me how innaccurate breadboard prototyping can be with loose wires and how fragile op amps can be when using them for amplification. Also, I found that the gap between theory and implementation was specifically hard to overcome as I found that equipment was often faulty and so proper lab practices like simply reducing wire length where possible are highly important.

Key Learnings

1- DON'T PUT ELECTRONICS IN YOUR BAG WHILST CYCLING - There were numerous times my loosely connected wires would shift in my bag and touch each other causing short circuits when connected to power and as a result I blew many op amps up when returning to the lab.

2- Localising different sections in my circuit is much more effective than dragging wires everywhere. I noticed that all my problems were mainly due to me not being careful when dragging wires and this lead to clashes in wiring and even more short circuits.

3- READ THE COMPONENTS DIAGRAM more carefully - I had assumed many component pinouts would be the same but (sounds very silly I know) different companies design things differently (this was a massive oversight which increased working time by many hours).