In my sand filled shoes: October 2009

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

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..

Monday, October 26, 2009

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

Thursday, October 22, 2009

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

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

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

Monday, October 12, 2009

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