Plenary Sessions
Importance of Water-Dirty and Clean
The importance of water is greater than I thought. Water is more than to quench thirst because it is also the giver of life to every living thing in this world. Therefore, without water, many living things die of dehydration, and further more, us. Water can be found easily in Singapore. The turn of the tap and water gushes out. But what I learnt was that in other undeveloped countries, people, even children walk kilometers everyday for one bucket of filthy water. What is wrong with this dirty, filthy water? This water is the cause of deaths. Millions of deaths. The dirty water has been polluted by the rest of us, or animals. Bacteria in the water cause deadly diseases such as cholera, dysentery and even typhoid fever. However, many big-hearted people have stepped up to help these helpless people, to give them hope. Well, even though there is help out there, there are still people dying as you read this now. Therefore, more help is required. We could do simple things to help like donating a dollar or even telling your neighbors about this.
In conclusion, what I learnt about the world through this talk was that there are so many ways in which I can help those with no water, the giver of life. And that is why everyone should play their part to help.
Revolution of Microelectronics Technology
Microelectronics has revolutionized the world and as well as my life. In my life, there are so many electronic items around but no one really cares or actually think that they make us different from years back, especially in the world of microelectronics. From this session, I have learnt something new called microelectronics. Previously, I never really heard about such a thing! Microelectronics is a higher level of electronics, at the microscopic scale. Therefore, microelectronics is really small electrical circuits. Electronics is used for things like entertainment and transportation but there are actually 9 areas of research for electronics, being bio, radio, auto, info, nano, water, audio, video and energy. These are vital areas of research for electronics. However, what I picked up from this session was the need for the next generation to be trained to be able to uncover more about these 9 areas. Other than that, electronics has changed the world, so if I want to change it even more, I should do electronics and know my limits!
Innovative breakthroughs in Nano-Science and Nano-Technology
What is nano-technology(nano-tech)? I used to think of it as plainly carbon fiber and fiberglass. That’s all, nothing else. But after the session on nano-tech, I have learnt so much more, about all the other uses and other possibilities for it. Nano-technology could be used for making ugly and protruding braces become almost invisible! These ceramic braces are one of the many uses of nano-tech. Nano-tech has also been used to make high-strength, low weight materials, like carbon fiber, or carbon nano tubes. It has also been used to create military armor with materials such as kevlar. The purpose of nano-tech is to scale down the small to even smaller, at the micro scale, that the surface area is higher and hence, having more energy for more extreme materials. I learnt that to fabricate the nano-tech material, either cutting down or scaling up is used. However, other than the materials, nano-science has made surgeries more convenient. By reducing the parts or procedures, things are made smaller. Possible creations could be a foldable TV or fuel cells! Something closer to us would be the new army pixel uniform. The uniform’s pixels are the size of the eye’s iris. Therefore, from far away, the human eye would not be able to differentiate it from the surroundings. In conclusion, I learnt that nano-tech has improved many things of the world and it is, a key thing for further research.
IT for Animation
Ever since I was taught to do stop-motion animation, I have ever since loved it. Animation has intrigued me by the endless possibilities is has. Animation is a combination of patience, arts and stories. With animation, I could do virtually anything. Make all sorts of things and make these things do actions or have even a personality! I have learnt the full, long and tiring process of animation from this session. The script, storyboard, character design, sound, reference frame drawing, intermediate frame drawing, painting, composition and shooting, and the finally the final print. This long process not only costs time but also money. While 3D animations cost around $30 million to produce, 2D animations cost $45 million to produce. That is a lot of money. Therefore, nowadays, most animations are 3D animations. I have also wanted to try 3D animation but have no idea how to. After this session, I learnt that lots of math and science are required for such impressive animations. Of course they needed such math and science to create life-like animations! What was I thinking? Anyway, another problem that raised up was the intensive amount of labour required for animation, which takes up much of the high cost. New technologies such as motion capture and image processing have cut down the amount of labour but there is really no perfect solution for this problem. Therefore, I have seen an area in which animation could be still further improved, to become yet better.
Disappearing glaciers, rising sea levels, and why gravity is even more important than you think
I have liked geography since I got the hang of it. But after the session by Assistant Professor Emma Hill, I have liked it even more. From this session, I learnt what geodesists are and the interesting things they do. Geodesists study the earth based on space. In other words, they use high-tech equipment like satellites to track the earth’s movement with extremely precise instruments. They use these extremely precise instruments also to calculate the sea-level rise or fall. The main thing that was brought across was that sea-level rise will not be the same everywhere. Most people think that when scientists say that the sea-level will increase, it would increase throughout the world. Actually, the sea-level increase would only be at the specific location the scientist states. I learnt the theory behind that which was that when a glacier of lots of mass is next to the water, it has a gravitational pull and causes the land and water to crowd toward it, and vice versa. Therefore, I think that with the knowledge that glaciers are disappearing and sea levels are rising, we should try to prevent this from happening.
Deepest impression...
After sitting through almost 3 hours of plenary sessions, I found that the second plenary session by Professor Yeo Kiat Seng on the revolution of microelectronics technology has left me with the deepest impression. I learnt much more about the ability and power of microelectronics, and how it is actually in my life. I learnt how microelectronics has changed the world to be the one I am living in now.
Deepest impression...
After sitting through almost 3 hours of plenary sessions, I found that the second plenary session by Professor Yeo Kiat Seng on the revolution of microelectronics technology has left me with the deepest impression. I learnt much more about the ability and power of microelectronics, and how it is actually in my life. I learnt how microelectronics has changed the world to be the one I am living in now.
DAY 3
Personal Reflection
1. The reason for choosing this project, project 9 was because
2. My role in the group was as the group leader.
3. Some challenges the group encountered was the
4. Through the project, I/we discover
5. As an individual, how I have benefitted from this program
6. My aspirations
