Once you have the box of capacitors from Ellie's desk --

-- the next trick is to know how to place them. There's a hint to this in the blue book you found on the coffee table between Mason's and Ellie's cubicles, the one called, "Tesla Coils: A User's Guide."

If you read the handwritten note on the first page, it says that the capacitor matrix will only work when there are no similar colors in the same row or column (and for masters, along any diagonal). Read to the end of this hint for a screenshot showing one way to achieve this.

This puzzle would be a lot simpler if you had 49 loose capacitors and could just put any color anywhere you wanted. Instead, they're linked together in bars, and you'll have to deal with the color combinations you have.

Any way that works for you is the right one, but I find it simpler to first find the one bar that's 7 capacitors long and slap it on the board, then build the rest of the board around it.

Next, you might want to arrange the bars in the work space at the right. There are two 6s and two 1s, two 5s and two 2s, and two 4s and two 3s. It's not too hard to find which combinations go together just by checking the colors.

Now you can start placing them in the board at the left. One way for amateurs to do this is to build along the diagonal -- that is, if you have a purple capacitor in the bottom left corner, next place a piece that has a purple capacitor in the next-to-last place and put it there, rotating the piece if you have to. Check for duplications in the rows, and then move on to the next piece.

For masters, it's harder since you also can't duplicate colors in the diagonal lines. You might try the above strategy, but stagger the pieces -- place the next-up piece in the third column rather than in the second, and so on.

To give you a little jumpstart, I usually place the 7-piece bar in the first column on the left in the amateur game. For masters, place the 7-piece bar in the middle, and place the 6-piece and 1-piece combos in the first and last columns, rotated as needed to avoid conflicts.

When you get all the capacitors placed without any conflicts, Nancy crows, "Alright!" If you think you're done but Nancy keeps quiet, there's a problem somewhere. Double check each row for matches, being especially careful about the orange and red pieces, which are very similar.

Still finding this puzzle horrible, time-consuming, and tedious? Well, yes, me too. Here's how I solved it: