Day 1:
One of the things that we did well so far in this camp was that the majority of us came early and were punctual,being here before the time that we were required to be here.Another thing that I think we did well today was that we showed more maturity here than the last camp,by the fact that we took a shorter time to quiet down after everybody heard the warning for the teacher.One of the things that can be improved is that the plenary sessions could have been given a larger time limit so as to not rush the lecturers,and to allow him/her to cover the subject more in depth. Some of the lecturers also went past the time limit.We can solve this by attending one of the normal lectures on the subject.Another problem is that during mealtimes,we disperse among the crowd,making assembly for later programs difficult and communication might also be impaired.We can solve this by having the teacher take an active role among the students so that he/she can serve as a reference point to stick to for the group members.
Plenary sessions:
Importance of Water - Dirty and Clean
In this plenary session,I have learnt that cholera,typhoid fever,dysentery and brained diarrhoea are caused by microbes in dirty water,but not all microbes are bad.I have also learned that pollution causes societal and economic impacts including smell,infectious diseases,chronic health risks and environmental degradation.1.1 billion people have no drinking water resources,2.4 billion people have inadequate sanitation facilities,3,4 billion people die each year from waterborne diseases,2 billion are at risk to water related bacterial diseases.We I also learnt that sewage systems go back a long time,and also about the societal+economic development Irony.Key enablers=water+energy,the irony is that economic development can compromise water resources,there is an increasing need to protect water resources as economies develop,and that protection means appropriate management of wastewaters and wastes.The expanding industry has urgent needs,and this creates innovation and entrepreneurial opportunities for students,about an NTU project in Kandy lake,Sri Lanka.We must augment limited resources,use technology to breach barriers,membranes for water reclamation,membranes for water desalination,making a difference for ourselves and others,and opportunity for service,rural and urban.
Revolution of Microelectronics Technology
In this plenary session we learnt that transformation of Singapore's electronics industry was due to the supply chain moving to Asia as a focal point for electronic companies,and that proliferation of electronics are driving global demand.Electronics is pervasive,it enables entertainment,medicine,transportation,manufacturing and communications. Bionano electronics includes programmable blood,electronic contact lens and brain implants.16.1 billion will be spent between 201 and 2015 on research,innovation and enterprise.Integrated circuits has many disciplines,Bio,Radio,Auto,Info,Nano,Water,Audio,Video and Energy which from the acronym BRAINWAVE.Electronic engineers arguably demands the highest salary.Electronics is the best,most rounded,has the broadest coverage,encompasses virtually everything,and unless you do electronic engineering,you will never know your limits.
Biomedical Engineering & Technology
It involves nano technology,biotechnology and defence technology.Nano materials for thermal applications.Carbon nano tubes have ten times the strength of steel but only a small fraction of the weight,which means it has a high strength to weight ratio.Quantum dots can shrink all the information housed in the library of congress into something the size of a sugar cube.Nano particles detect cancerous tumors when they are only a few cells in size.We also learnt that a smaller size for a fixed volume= larger surface area,and that a larger surface area = more energy.
IT for Animation by Prof Seah Hock Soon
Animation consists of stop motion,2D animation and 3D animation,and is story telling and an optical illusion caused by consecutive display of 2 or more different static images.Mathematics in movies also uses geometric modeling,calculus for limits functions,deviations,integrals,and how to light up a scene.The laws of physics is used for fire,water and fabric movement.Motion capture is used for image processing and computer vision.A 2D animation has a beautiful art form,skilled artists,but is also labour intensive and causes budget pressure.A career in IT and Animation means that you can also be an inventor,identify and analyse problems,provide effective solutions and includes science and technology,art and passion.IT is in our life,everybody can be an inventor,take the first step and start something.
Disappearing Glaciers, rising sea levels, and why gravity is even more important than you think
Geodesists measure the shape and size of the earth,its gravity field and how these things change over time.Space based techniques such as GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiences) that measure time-varying gravity can measure things in great detail.Sea level rise may not be the same everywhere,and it is hard to measure glacier melting.Two objects with mass are attracted to each other,and is measured using the formula Fg=Gm,m2/d^2.The glacier pushes down the land and the crust is as such depressed.Water is attracted to the glacier.Relative sea level=sea surface-solid surface.When the glacier melts,the crust rebounds and the land moves up,and water moves away from the glacier due to its decreasing mass,and this can cause the sea level near the glacier to go down,and this is why the places furthest away from the glacier experience the highest sea level rise.
The lecture that I found interesting was the first lecture, “Water,dirty and clean” as I find it rather interesting that such a simple thing that we use and take for granted everyday can have so many things attached to it.The lecturer also has some credit for it being engaging for the students.
Day 2:
What I have learned today are the ways to separate various recyclable objects using the properties of the materials they are made out of and their geometric properties.What we did in our project challenge and spent time learning for the whole day was assembling,testing,and modifying to some extent an automatic waste sorter already made by our student guides at NTU.The machine was already disassembled and the 3 concepts of which the machine operates on was explained to us.The first concept is a counter balancing lever to separate the glass which has a significantly higher weight than the rest of the objects.The second concept was to use a rotating head with 4 magnets to separate the steel can which is magnetic as soon as it enters the machine from the feeding tube.The third concept is to use the differences of the length of the aluminum can and the plastic bottle by the means of a small hole in the ramp which allows the can to fall through when the corrugated cardboard operated by a motor is in the fully open state,but not when the cardboard is fully extended.This means that it will take a bit of time for the bottles and cans to be properly sorted.The constant motion of the corrugated cardboard also prevents bottles from falling through the hole.
What I have observed that is during the applied project challenge,the group worked well and efficiently together to assemble the automatic waste sorting machine,although the arrangement of the group’s power structure and work distribution may not have been ideal.
The things that we have done well today were that we finished the challenge before the within the first session,that is,before lunch.This reflects upon the ability of the group to work as a team although the fact that we were supposed to assemble an already designed,tested machine from disassembled parts may have made the project somewhat easy.We were also punctual after our tea breaks and lunch breaks.
Some areas for improvement are that we could have been more objective in criticizing the machine that has been built by the NTU students,as we could have hurt them emotionally.We should also not jump to conclusions as this can give a conclusion that may not be accurate or true.The power structure and the work distribution in the group can also be changed so that each member of the group can be more proactive and therefore more work can be done.
I feel that the project of assembling a machine that has already been built is a project that does not really need an entire day to complete.Rather,if we had to build a working prototype with the materials and tools provided in the MAE innovation laboratory it would enable us to learn more and also to retain better those knowledge and skills as they are products of our minds,instead of just rebuilding what others have already found out.As the NTU students took 1 month for the entire process in the construction of the machine while having other pursuits a time of a week to a fortnight of concentrated attention upon this project should be sufficient for us to build an automatic waste sorter by ourselves.I also feel that it is a bit rude to modify the machine which the NTU students have worked on and put their money and effort into.
Areas for improvement on the Automatic Waste Sorter machine
The machine could have been powered by gravity with simple mechanisms instead of motors,speed controllers,infra red sensors,and such.The sigh would be something like a dustbin,with a feeding tube on top and four separate compartments at the bottom for the four different materials.The way for glass to be separated is the same as the machine we worked on today,only the mechanisms for separating the steel,aluminum and plastic would be slightly different although using the same concepts.After the glass have been sorted,the remaining materials would fall and a magnet would attract the steel cans to an exit at the side,but not strong enough to make the steel can stick to the magnet.The remaining Plastic bottles and aluminum cans can be sorted using the big-object-cannot-fit-into-a-small-hole-but-a-small-object-can concept.
Day 3
1.I choose this project because of the project selection criteria that I have used to select the project.The reason why have chosen this project is because:
The project is conducted by the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Of the 3 remaining projects by MAE,I chose this project because it is relatively more interesting to me and it was easier to understand what we are going to do in the project.I also have an interest in design and build projects.
It was more difficult for me to choose my second choice.as I did have a number of interests and the projects that were offered appealed to me in many ways,for example the electronics,civil engineering and physics projects.
It was more difficult for me to choose my second choice.as I did have a number of interests and the projects that were offered appealed to me in many ways,for example the electronics,civil engineering and physics projects.
2.My role in the group is to contribute whatever is in my ability to contribute.I helped partly in the assembly of the machine and also partly in the blog posts.
3.Challenges I/we encounter when working on this project in the last 2 days And how I/we overcome these challenges
The challenges that we have faced in the project concerning the Automatic Waste Sorter machine are that some of the components,mainly the motor of the steel can sorter and the white bumper needed a lot of fine tuning as both too high and too low a speed can disrupt the functions of the mechanisms.Too high a speed on the magnet rotator can mean that the magnets cannot attract the steel can,and too low a speed can mean that the steel can will not detach from the magnet.A high speed on the white bumper can mean that the aluminum can will not have enough time for a suitable amount of clearance to fall through the hole,and if the speed is too slow the bottle and the can might get jammed in the hole.Another challenge that we faced was that the infra red sensors were unpredictable and sometimes it might work and sometimes it might not.The people in my group who were working on this side of the project overcame this challenge by replacing the
placing of the transmitter and receiver and the programming of it so that the layout is changed to a through sensor and the programming is such that when the continuous infra red beam is blocked by an object,it activated the servo motor that drives the feeding wheel and sends an object into the machine to be sorted.
4.Through this project,I/we discover that it takes a very long time to come up with what may seem like a simple machine,the students at NTU took 1 month for the entire process of designing and constructing the Automatic Waste Sorter machine.
5.As an individual, how I have benefited from this programme
As an individual,I have benefited from the programme by gaining more knowledge about NTU and also somewhat about how life in a university is like.I have also learnt a lot from the project itself,for example the design pyramid and the different types of design,and how they are used.I have also benefited as an individual through the project as it teaches me about how the sorting of waste is one very important step in recycling.
6.My Aspirations
My Aspirations would be to become an Aeronautics engineer and enter the industry as one,or I might want to work in a school or a university teaching the subject or doing research.If I come to NTU in the future it would be probably be to the School of Mechanical and Aerospace engineering,although at the moment I also have other interests.
