x'mas fun

well... x'mas week was pretty much fun this year... i had parties on fri, sat, sun.. 3 days of continuous partying...

Fri was x'mas day and the first ever dragonboat x'mas party for the 06 batch ... almost everybody turned up though we were missing a few 'arhats' and girlfriends.. well.. i hope that over time... the girlfriends will also know each other better and then we can have more of this kind of stuff in future for other occasions besides x'mas as well.

attendance for the nite ...

Thanks for making the point of coming even if you were late..

arhat pose

the galfrens.. the ladies who's been waiting for us, supporting us

thanks to boon and leslie for majority of the planning and everyone else who helped a lil here and there thereafters...

my parents were happy to host the thing... saying that we are a fun bunch of people.. noisy and happy.. and helpful to stay back and help up. they also say 'that tall tall one with the earrings ' was rather responsible to stay back and clean up.. (snicker ... hahaha). My parents were also impressed with charmaine's potato salad... keep bugging me to ask both leslie and charmaine how to do it.. my dad and mom.. the copy ninjas promptly converted the bunch of potatoes we have at home into a copy of her potato salad without the bacon bits... after a fair bit of discussion over coffee on the morning of boxing day.

sat was my aunt's party for the family.. been a while since my maternal family met up... and also a while since i saw my nephews and niece.. haha.. it was kinda funny when my cousin came and promptly made fun of my younger female cousins and my sister by introducing his son that they were their aunties.. drawing some sibei sian faces..

my dad's idea of a log 'cake' .... log pork. he's grinning from ear to ear... for having trick two kids into thinking it is some chocolate roll/ cake this x'mas.

'san duo hua' .. my mom, big aunt, and small aunt..

haha.. brought the wii for the kids.. (my nephews and nieces). kinda surprised that my female cousins dunno what wii was initially..

my cousin's son.. cute boy.. he offered me his milo just so i have 'enough energy and win' for him in the raving rabbids game and he will take the initiative to ask for help when he isn't coping well.. . think my cousin brought him up well.

Sunday was for my paternal family ... celebrating the annual x'mas at my grandma's place... nothing special really happened though it was nice seeing my cousin yolanda back from perth.. The highlight of the day instead was on the morning's brunch at Spruce. Finally ... one of the few sundays without a training... without hesitation, me and joko decided to head to this place at tanglin after being denied an earlier visit cos of my ns mobilisation a few weeks ago.. (hence the rant)

Spruce!

the interiors..

it is a rather small establishment.. like some old barracks retrofitted into a restaurant... it's rather cosy nonetheless.. and it isn't too cold inside ... just nice..

the exteriors from inside..

its a sheltered balcony with fans, its almost like inside minus the air con.

Big brekkie, eggs benny and the damn nice banana pancakes!!

it's my first time having poached eggs as well for the fun of it..

anyway.. i have rush to the harbour-front now.. heading off to batam for a getaway with the lawn bowlers for the annual yr end gathering..

a rather haphazard update but a

happy new year and a belated x'mas to all of you.. !

Jingle times...

YAY! the time waster interim is done. finally.. i can move on to something more pressing.. but fun...

now on, i have to quickly develop the shank, ankle component for yun li before we can send for fabrication.

x'mas!

PIMP db in 2 days time. .. i'm finally in the mood to look forward to it.

i need to set up my x'mas tree.. and i hope i dun dread the process of it as i stretch my arms and legs...

Mr Peh been doing a mighty fine job .. and i'm now reeling from the v crunches... my (f)abs hurt alot.

My blister got worse after land training on monday too.. its stupid of me to try to run. now i have a blister in a blister...

thanks to joko.. its nice and clean now..

daddy tan was too lazy to set it up, so i have to tell him to lug it out and i set it up myself.

things to do today (besides fyp)

collect chairs from my small aunt and mebbe collect more from charmaine too..

set up xmas tree

clean up house,

get sis to clean up her room and stun her table

go back hall and pick up my whiteboard?

take picture for my resume?

buy pressies

* * *

I see you

the army should look into a lightweight high range, low noise Naruto type radio communicators just like Jakescully's over here..

flying in the sky can talk to alien gf and brother in the jungle,

friend in helicopter,

Stealing away some moments from my interim report that doesn't seem to be finishing despite my daily efforts..

I just caught Avatar last nite with Joko... it was great! I wonder how much this movie was scaled back seeing that James Cameron did reduced Titantic from a initial i think 4 hr film to a final 3 hr film.. The storyline is rather refreshing though not entirely new and unexpected as how a person's moral compass fueled by love and attachment will always lead them to triumph over those blinded with power and greed. Once again the movies has brought more insights to how high tech future computers can be ... think of those itouch kind of projector screens.. like minority report, iron man .. Also once again Mech warrior inspired units were presented as the future mechanized tanks for the jungle...

also, its kinda funny for me to see the mother of all alien movies, sigourney weaver in another alien movie.. i think her casting has to do with her Aliens background

* * *

mmm..

some interesting thoughts about my cip for ren ci today too..

When leaders of such organisations fall and mishandle funds, the organisation are affected the greatest, the dependents will also suffer as people turn away from it.

as i approach a couple of people today for donations, most of them were kind enough to drop a dime or more but i've got this lady today who once hearing that this donation was for ren ci, she just went 'oh .. then no..' and stomped away and one couple decided to discuss with me about the organisation's previous head's misdeeds. Best of all, i've got one uncle who just went 'ARRUGH!' when he saw Ren Ci imprinted on the tin can..

mmm..

if you wanna do good, you better be good.

else all the good people you take care

will suffer.

dear mojo jojo

writer's block

3OH!3

starstrukk ft katy perry

tik tok

tiktok by Kei$ha

Finally, Army week has passed.. ICT... recall manning...

pardon for the rant... i never seem to like the army... even though there are times where i enjoyed certain activities like the int planning work but there will always be some crap that comes along that spoils it all...just like what my branch mate Jonathan will say ... "Murphy will indent shit for you", taking a poke at Murphy's law

Luckily for me.. Sunday's recall was rather quick... once everybody reached, we were able to get S2 to clear us.. though.. it could have

been muchearlier if Dexiang woke up earlier from chionging at butterfac the night before... haha.. it was funny that it was him who sent a

'motivational sms' the day before to make the event a 'chop chop' once activated... to report to camp immediately once getting the call and getting s2 to clear us.. I'm looking forward to my free meal but i wonder if i will have time for it..

time realli flies.. it's been close to 5 years since coming out of ns and tian'en is gonna get married

next november .. and because of mr spidey wong.. i may have to be converted into the vehicle commander..

sians.... I rather take over G's role as the scout monitoring specialist ... Anyway, hope by the next ict, we would be able to 'acquire' fattie back

into our unit...

haiz.

back from ict.. back to FYP.

interrim report draft by wed, hand up by fri.

meeting on wed,

meeting 2 on thurs.

idiots

the person who planned my recall/ mobilisation today should be shot in the head.

i hate this feeling and i hate playing this bloody guessing game. can't they just activate when they say they were supposed to. like yesterday?

worse week ever.

sometimes i wonder if its just me and my luck. but my experiences with the army only makes me wanna curse and swear at them even more... go range.. happily thought can get marksman.. hit all the targets.. but can still fail cos the bloody ipets system fail. not just me... but the whole entire company was robbed of their money. CO included.

dirt beckons

i finally finished my exams today...

my last paper felt simple, there was just a tinge of dissatisfaction because i could remember some of the easy parts, lost out on those marks which isn't good...

anyway, my exams didn't feel like it has ended...

straight after school and buying my printer ink, i came home and started packing my bag for reservice and typed my cover letter and resume... all the way till 11pm.

i think i should try to read more story books this hols... Joko was laughing away at my Engrish as i try to craft something pleasant for my resume.

6 more days to go before my schedule turns much kinder on me...

for now.. its bedtime...

990 parkas

In a few hours time, i will be sitting for my 2nd last paper... The last paper being my year 4 specialisation module, Biomaterials, will be on next Monday. Most of my friends have already finished their papers, some of which have already gone off for their holidays...

i can't really complain for because of this elaborate plan of having a few days between papers, i am able to have ample study time to make the best out of it and try to score for my papers. So far they 'feel' quite good. not like that shitty feeling during yr 1 and 2 where i would pray that i will be contend with a pass...

but we shall see... i anin't a v good student and i am always a lil forgetful here and there..careless once in a while.

The following's the list of stuff that awaits me after this paper...

Immediately after tomorrow's paper..

1)Shop @ Uniqlo ... the megastore at 313 is now open... both me and joko are eyeing their 9.90 parkas...

2)Check out the game store at orchard central for extra wii controllers, the new super mario game, new rabbids game, mario party 8 and most probably a fourth game... a car racing game.. for the upcoming Db PIMP event, Batam trip with the lawn bowlers and maybe for my auntie's party.. Major $$$...

3)Arrange resume

Over the weekend

4) Study for last paper

5) pack for ICT

6) draft out interim report to write out during my ICT (which happens to be immediately after my paper on monday...)

After ICT

7) Rush out fyp interrim report. Send to mentor, then send to prof.

8) get back at my fyp.

9) get back my fitness

10)plan sem 2 timetable

11)full time prep for PIMP

12)prep for batam trip

and the list goes on... i'm gonna be awfully busy...

Studying at home have been really good... peace and quiet and i don't have to worry about the usual chores. My dad's been cooking alot these days. Today alone.. he made muffins and practiced grilling pork. Last weekend, he cooked miso tonkatsu ramen and cooked the swedish meatballs i bought from ikea. I know Joko's been happy. haha..

What to do B4 Losing Hair

Mmm... looks like alot of people are celebrating their 'big occasion' in the recent 2 weeks.

*looks at jinhan (1mth), leslie (1yr), Boon (2yr)*

Last week, was also our 6th Month-sary...

too bad the exams are looming by, and i just started studying... we couldn't really spend a day out just having fun... my DAMN GOOD girlfriend instead suggested we should go have a nice dim-sum brunch at Harbourfront's Dragon Gate on Sunday morning since i don't have much chance of enjoying such luxuries during term time when i usually have trainings on weekend mornings.. and I've never gone there before..

A picture from the crime scene.... most of the food there were fried... our favourite were the fried yam balls with prawns and the fried mixed fruit balls. The rest of the food were just so so and quite filling cos there's so much batter on the fried dim sum. I think we still like Din Tai Fung's steamed dim sum selections like the mini yam baos and the XLBs from Din Tai Fung better..

Joko wearing my Jackie Chan yellow jacket..

The air conditioning at the restaurant was really cold...

After eating, we decided to adjourn to Starbucks@vivo to study... saw a couple of people studying there as well.. halfway through at our stay there.. local Capella group Budak Pantai (they have a nice website design btw ) came in and started promoting their upcoming concert and album... it was nice having people coming in and give a live gig though we were instead engrossed at our notes and sudoku puzzles half the time though.. and we left for my place immediately after their gig though.. cos the sun was shining through into the shop and unto us....

Haha.. last of all, i would like to thank my gf once again for throwing me another surprise last weekend.. for giving me an exams goody ... i was wondering how come she was coming over to my place so late ... who knew she would SURPRISE me once again.. lolz.

Haha.. thanks for being my cheerleader...=)

ooooooooOOoooooohhhhh... look what came.

I'm almost liberated from my group work. Just have to meet the prof and hand it to him. Just spent 38 bucks on printing my report. As i stepped out of the print shop and to the computer terminals, i could still see some people still furiously rushing through their report. They were from another class, and i wonder were their project as tough as my class. .. tough isn't the word..

. but tedious... cumbersome and just a plain waste of time...

I was really pissed at how things were going in the afternoon yesterday for my 4011 report... in the end, i gotta change my plans and i didn't manage to print out the report yesterday night, lost alot of valuable studying time. mutters.

Straight away after my quiz, i skipped my lunch, went down to the design lab, stole a monitor to attach to my laptop and started working on it. time then was around 230pm. I thought i could finish it by the evening, head out of school, return my library books and have dinner at ajisen .. rammennn.. the nnooodles, the soup... then study at starbucks... coffeee... how nice it would be.. to finally wrap things up and then start studying for the exams.

In the end, i was still changing things by around 5pm. After the lab closed, i moved to the library instead and continued working on it.

it was close to 930 pm before i left the library... without lunch, without dinner but my stomach filled with anger instead. Although things were better and i wasn't as angry when my gf started to talking to me... i still couldn't get over how badly and unsystematic things were done... not like my previous group work outings.... I was starting to feel pretty burned out... tired... and moodless to study.. though my paper is just next Thurs.

After hearing about how lousy things were going and how i wished to have some nice ajisen volcano ramen, my gf asked me if i really wanted ramen and said she will send it to me.. At first, i was wondering if she actually gonna go buy some and deliver it to my hall.. i was secretly wishing earlier in the evening... about how nice it would be if she would come by and surprise me hahaha.. but after some thought, i think its just silly and she shouldn't go through so much effort just for me. damn off.. lol... tekkan her to come to ulu NTU and then go back home just for my dinner .. I was also thinking.... Singapore where got people deliver ramen one.... Ajisen got ramen delivery services? I will be their favourite customer...so i rejected her initial offers but i relented once she assured me that she wasn't gonna come down... but she still wouldn't tell me how my ramen was coming...

Well, she told me that she already ordered my ramen and that it would come around 920-950 or so. In my mind, i still thought that she bluff me sia... order mac or kfc or pizza for me... or even call Mingli and Kaho pass to me.. but thats just plain silly... lol..

at around 10 pm, after some help was rendered to the poor delivery guy who got lost at the NEC, this package arrived...

Rammmmmennnnnnnnn.. pwah.. it really did came... i was kinda dumbfounded and smiling silly when it arrived... I couldn't find the words to describe my delight and happiness... You really made my day Joko =) Thanks for the surprise haha..

Its the first time I've encountered such a delivery service... actually the guy was from 'hungrygowhere.com' a local food search website, what i didn't expect was that you can actually order ramen from the website itself. For her, it was the first time she she did such a thing.. haha.. i'm honoured and touched by her effort.. haha..

you can still see that i'm still working on my 4011 report .... but heck it. my dinner more important..

what a healthy spread.. lots of vege, good portion of noodles, some meat and definitely lots of love.. haha..

i'm super touched.. haaaahaha.. thanks Dear! you cheered me up and recharged my drive to study once more...

dark clouds are looming and the kites are still flying...

mmm..finally... a night that seems good for a run.

i just did a straight 5 hour study session at the sac for my quiz tomorrow.. straight after my quiz today..

just had a short chat with denny... and he reminded me that next week is the start of exams..

exams? exams?? really?

next thursday is my first paper...

and i still have a report on hand and a nanotech quiz to go tomorrow..

its been a rush since last week and this week... for me, i did my part for the report dutifully and tried my best to help as much and then rushing to study for this week's quizzes.. gosh.. last week of sch still got lectures and quizzes... damn 'da pian' sia..

i guess all the work kinda made me so busy that i even put my exam 'kan cheongness' aside.. i havent really think so much into it.. i just thought about just studying and studying and dun care how when is it..

mebbe thats a good thing? but i guess thats all i can manage for now..

just wished everybody were a bit faster so we could wrap up last week not this week.. be it for lectures or my lousy engine design report..

for the engine design report , i guess we can only blame the silly prof for loading us with so much rubbish.. other people design rubbish bin, we have to design one automated car park... with x999999 mechanical components to consider.. anyway. i'm kinda sian doing the consolidating but i guess i'm the only one fast enough to get everythin moving. why does it have to be me at the first place ... i just hate people who wait on others....

anyway.. too late for such stuff... anyway i will finish consolidating and format it by tml afternoon and get it printed out before meeting the rest of the group... right now.. it stands at 200 + pages. siao.

don't worry. i'm fine... definitely not emo... just an occasional rant...

thanks dear for editing it for me... (and my group) i hope our ang moh aren't too bad. sometimes we just speak like that. hah!

looking forward to Sunday!

mmm.. agent fields

cool..seems like agent strawberry fields is coming back to big screens soon in another act...



something to look forward to in the near future..

back to my quizzes and report

a tribute.

Coming back from my run and pull up this morning, i check my email and received a friendster birthday alert from his account.... i was thinking if people still remember that today is a very special day...or have they moved on from thinking about him... then seeing Ashley's then Soon Cai's nick..then Boon's blog.. i'm glad they still do.

3 years ago, this period of time, we were probably finish studying at the library and headed down to macs where you will have your Mcspicy with 2 packets of chili. one to put on top of the chicken patty, the other below it... While some of us are having tuna bread instead in a bid to lose weight

I kinda miss the times where i see u disturb people in the library .. how you and Justin terrorize and disturb all the prc students and this 'big nose' person who nehsi just wanna sit in the cubicles between us and the canoeists.

I feel like having one Mcspicy now.

Happy Birthday BS.

Football..

Well.... ever since i knew Joko, I've gone back to watching soccer just like how i did when i was in primary school... i guess i stopped for a while since my family didn't have cable tv and at other times, i am too lazy to stay up to watch the games...

anyway.. these days, playing the Fantasy Soccer League with Justin, Xinzhi and the oldbies been helping me relieve stress... For the games each week, i will scour the net for some tips for the players to add..

happen to chance upon this website and it happened to have one of the silly videos that Xinzhi posted up recently ..

http://www.boxofficefootball.com/

my favourite section is the funbox section.. lots of silly videos about the hits and misses of soccer..

http://www.boxofficefootball.com/category/funbox/

He's gonna be a sad striker..

Good for inter hall soccer competitions...

Get well soon Dear~!

Clinical Trial Day

Today's the day...D Day..

my first Clinical Trials Day with my research team .. where me and my phd mentors got our patient / volunteer to help us test out several tests for the different prototype set ups for our devices..

Well, not all the tests went on smoothly, but i guess thats why they are tests.. and failure or whatever that fails is a positive result ... we managed to see what's wrong and things to improve for the next set ups... like the frame, the power systems, the chakra sandals ... we managed to run a couple of other tests such as the Foot gait test to measure footfall pressures as well as EMG tests to measure muscle activations.. Overall, i guess it was quite a productive day in terms of the results we extracted.. though now we have to process them and hence... but that would be another day bah....

i need rest.

this concludes 2 and a half months of non stop action and its time to prep for the exams. we improved on our initial frame set up, took time off from class and made it as serviceable for our test today.

for the past 2 weeks though.. i spent most of my time trying out my insole sensors, after countless times of testing.. it still doesn't give me good readings. Yesterday me and my mentor tried hard to fix the problems to the best that we could and we decided to hook it up with an instrumentation board instead, it still didnt give us clear readings after trying to process it, but i guess we can only make do with what we have. before heading back to my room at around 12, i decided to check if my fyp partner yunli if he was still fixing up the frame.. and true to his nature, he was still there.. If there was a 'hardworking' prize .. i guess he will win it for sure.. gotta peifu him cos he skipped his lunch and dinner to work on the frame, and didnt intend to go home until he's finished...

i decided to stay and help him and thankfully we managed to finish at 1am..

I must say i also peifu my mentors and seniors.. one of them also stayed overnite to fix up their prototype. It was quite unfortunate that one of their motor drives failed but their system looked impressive. for the past month , once their frame was completed and sent over to our lab, they started assembling and programming the device.. it was quite a waste not to be ready for testing though...

overall, so far, i quite enjoyed this FYP ... its quite a hands on project but i'm glad to learn the things i always wanted to learn ... the bad part is just that i don't have alot of time to focus my time on the necessary researching and learning the necessary skills that i'm lacking for it such as robotics control ... there's just too much school work.. (@W^%^#* 4011 project)... inevitably, i also had to miss some trainings to rush out certain parts of the project for fabrications for today's trial.. i am alr skipping my sleeping time, my lesson time, and my weekend gf time for my fyp ... the only time left would be to tap on my training time...

so. have the people been fair for me

i wonder..

anxiety...

So what am i building now for my fyp..

here's a sneak preview..

my 'chraka sandals' and the 6.90 fake crocs.

Insole retro fitted with sensors..

sians.. this thing just doesnt work..

insole + sensors + chraka sandals + crocs = ironman's footwear

Wednesday's my first clinical trial for my prototypes... which would make it 2 days from my work

My prof will be inviting for my patient to come down to school to test both my mentor's system and my prototypes that me and my fyp partner have been building for the past 2 months...

i am feeling a sense of anxiety as the day approaches...

my prof has a certain level of expectations from it.. and if we do not prepare sufficiently enough for this testing ... we would lose out alot in our progress for our work... i even skipped yesterday's water session in order to finish sewing my passive ankle supports and look up for some coding templates for my pressure sensor that a noob like me can understand and edit.

for the past 2 weeks before today, I've been skipping some lessons just to fix up my foot sensor device. Consulting my mentors helped a lil .. but because i know nuts abt C programming, i can only work as much as the time they can dedicate to helping me. Compatibility issues between windows vista and xp cause me to spend half the time in the lab installing programs and troubleshooting them instead of working on the programming though.. something quite frustrating..

I also skipped class and stayed up late to work on other major project ... my 4011 engineering design project..i decided to start the ball rolling and start on the consolidation of reports, tooling up whatever we have done.. my grp still have a ton of work to do before we can close this case. would be good if everybody was more on the ball.

its gonna be a tough week.

but please give me the energy to do everything that i can to make it a good one..

i still have

1) 4011 report to rush by next week with FEM and PLC sections still untouched.

2) PRof comm presentation to prepare

3) quizzes coming up

the good things to look forward to

1) is that i will be more free from fyp after this wed...

2) gf's bdae celebrations this weekend

book of the half blood prince

mmm... yesterday, keng hock suddenly msned me telling me if i know my other course mate.. he has chanced upon a copy of my 3011 project that is circulating around ... i wonder who started circulating it and i wonder if it was either me or elmer that sent the first copy..

anyway.. i was glad that he found it useful and helpful (well i hope so bah..) saying that it was detailed and good.. mm.. thinking about made me happy.. which reminded me of it as somewhat like the Half Blood Prince that Harry Potter relied on for his potions class...

not that i'm particularly boastful about it but more of a sense of satisfaction cos both me, elmer and with xiaoqian's help.. thought its definitely not the best around.. but we tried our best and made it as detailed as we could...

and cos of it.. i happily bagged my first few As which only started appearing last year... though it was a tough period coming up with this report.. much spent over late night coffee runs and re-runs of movie videos to keep me awake.. i guess it was all worth it..

as i work on my 4011 right now.. i hope to repeat the feat and churn out a report of the same standard or even better... with the hope that i would again get a much better grade this time... especially cos the scope of my class' project dwarfs the scope of many of my peers in its complexity.. which is quite an unfortunate fact.. one that i believe many of my classmates will be cursing and swearing about our tutor as they rush their work out...

3 more weeks remains on the doomsday clock

Boomz ... rad and it says ME!

Picture of the day....[look at the top of the pix and you know why.. ]

looks like game makers are using it as well for advertisement...

found some interesting links here and there....

Last week i read that Capitalland and Mediacorp are working together for a charity project titled "we are one" that involves people to buy blocks of lego and piecing them together into a one giant lego city of Singapore. The money will go to the beneficiaries of the Com Chest and the President's Challenge. you can check out the webbie at... http://www.weareone.sg/index.htm

For this event, they will be engaging this lego 'shi fu' Nicholas Foo to make this City of ours.... Check out this website of his... it has many lil things that he's done with lego blocks, like picture frames, lamps and other small gifts...

http://blackbulbcreations.blogspot.com/

I found this other website... while looking for the terms and conditions for some photo competitions for sam when she asked me what are the usual requirements for this sort of stuff especially for the dpi and pixel counts..

Surviving the Recession ...

joIN CONTEST, SHOP FOR DISCOUNT, VISIT ROADSHOWS, GET FREEBIES,.....

http://deathcoth.blogspot.com/

In there you can find loads of discounts and competitions / contests you can participate to win prizes... lol..

last of all.. check out this mr bean spoof of spider man when you can for a good laugh...

embedding them is unavailable but here's the links.. you won't regret it.. haha..

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-eXhgxoXFw

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_0HX2a4oNQ&feature=related

Final Year Pain [edited]

I just had lunch in the comfort of my room.... starting to feel a lil sleepy from the food. I'm also tired from having attended 2/3 of my crappy HRM lecture ... such a waste of time. The new lecturer isn't really engaging like the previous one and spent 1 hr introducing himself to the class today. I didn't really listen to him though, and spent much of the lecture doing the necessary calculations for a conveyor belt system for my 4011, Mechanical System Design and Analysis project.... another tedious project which my class unfortunately have to do a comparatively harder topic compared to the rest of the cohort.

Think I should just take a break from doing any school work and blog a lil (before i finish downloading my conveyor belt catalog.)

Lets talk about FYP... one of the most sians part of Year 4.

Being year 4, one of integral part of a student's life revolves around his Final Year Project ... aka Final Year Pain... Think most people are still unclear of what I'm doing for my FYP and what i have done in these 2 months... so here's a brief intro....

FYP : Project Iron-Man Legs.

The main objective for my FYP is to design and develop this Biomechanical device that would

enable my patient, a person with a history of spinal cord injury to stand and walk about in the comfort of his home. He is wheelchair bound and most of his leg muscles have atrophied so he doesn't have enough strength to stand on his own. He also have some problems with his nervous system so he can't really feel on one leg. Therefore, for my project, we have to come up with this leg orthosis that can firstly help him stand on his own, next help him lift his legs and in that motion help to move.

For this project also, i have a partner who's actually doing more into the designing whereas i will do the programming.. However, due to the intricate system that we are developing we can't really separate the workload that clearly... I am however, stressed up with the current progress because though i'm doing the programming, we are only able to being work on it only now.. half way through semester 1...

Mind you, the deadline that my professor set for my project is by this December where we will send our devices for fabrication and wait for it to return.

Well, technically it would look something like this... or thats what we visualize how it would be ...

(you can read this up on the internet... http://www.cyberdyne.jp/English/robotsuithal/index.html)

Cyberdyne's HAL suit

though i personally wished it could be this instead...(wishful thinking)

So far, we haven't started on the leg automation part but more of the walking frame and harness that would help our patient stand straight... although its not really the main part of the working mechanism however, if he can't stand properly how is he going to walk at the first place? So I've been working with my friend on the unimportant but necessary aspects. My partner focusing on the frame whereas I come up with the body support harness and a pair of customized shorts to help him stand straight. and secure him firmly to the frame.

The troublesome part of this is that we must first think of probably come out with technical calculations and preliminary drawings of our designs, clear our designs with our professor, then draw out the technical drawings, consult the manufacturer and then quickly send for fabrication.. So, if you take your time for one part of this process.. it snowballs and your whole progress will delay....

Completed stuff... the harness and special shorts ...

[talking about this harness.. i was damn bloody fed up with the vendor the other day when i collected it after my SAVA sprints on Saturday.... When i called up the vendor on Wednesday.. the vendor told me that he should be done in 2 days' time, so Friday evening i should be able to come collect... when i got there by Saturday evening, he was still rushing the harnesses and shorts.. mutter.. that i can still forgive since such stuff are customized and hand made so it's requires some 'kungfu' by the shop vendor.. nvm. checking through the 3 items i got him to fabricate, one of the harness for my phd mentor was done wrongly... looking at it.. i was a lil unhappy so i told him that i would be getting my mentor to come down and look at it first before paying him... in the end.. i was ticked off by the vendor that i was delaying his payment and he refuses to keep amending my stuff without paying him...

WTH ... was what i was thinking... you didnt do a good job and u expect me to pay you? basket...

i was damn pissed to be ticked off .. and isn't it the right of a customer to only pay after the job has been completed? what right do you have to demand it then.. you already defaulted on the deadline and you didnt deliver your goods properly, shouldn't you be apologetic even? bloody ass.

I was furious but in order not to ruin the business relation between the research team and this shop vendor, i reluctantly paid him the 700 dollars in my wallet which i withdrew from my bank account... already ready to pay the vendor so long he did his job.. I think i should be the first IA student to have already paid 1.2K dollars for my FYP alone.. and have started to claim money for it. ]

The new frame prototype for testing purposes...

Me and Yunli.. my fyp partner... posing with Mark 1 and Mark 2 of our frame prototype.

now I am waiting for my metal holder for the harness sent for fabrication to arrive and also come up with other prototypes such as for the feet, and the leg to test our walking mechanism.

Metal harness holder

much have been done, but a whole lot more awaits me... i only hope things will go smoothly for me for all my different modules

i long for time to spend with my neglected one...