Kevin's Reflections

Pre-Camp Reflections

•      What interests you about this project?

- The things that interests me about this particular is that i would have the opportunity to try use technoogy thats foreign and new to me to make something productive and interesting. 

•       What do you want to learn by doing this project?

- What i wish to achieve and learn from this project is to become much more familiar with this type of work as i find it interesting although i am not good at it, through this i would want to learn to be able to do   similar projects using the skills obtained from this project. 

•       What questions do you have about this project?

I would naturally have lots of questions but more importantly if i am able to catch up with what is taught or explained as i take in information very slowly. 

•      What do you personally want to have achieved by the end of this project?

I would like to be able to obtain more knowledge as it might be needed to understand what i learn in the future, it may also be related to what lince of work i would get into. 






Day 1 Reflections


A) My Key Learning Points...

1. Plenary session by Prof Sieh (Geo Stuff) 

• My view on this subject has been widely increased, i learnt that there is much more to Geological stud then i previously thought, especially on the study of Earthquakes and Tsunamis and the many different methods to predict their occurrence. 

• After going through the presentation I found out about the effects that an incoming Earthquake or a passed Tsunami have on the environment around them.For example the Mega Thrust when energy is released at once from a fault line when an earthquake occurs, it pushes the island above the plate higher by some distance. To measure this, Corals are used as they do not grow above low-tide sea levels. Just by measuring the formation and growth of the coral can determine when an Earthquake had struck very accurately.

• I find this very interesting and might try this out in the future if i have a chance as it could help many people avoid disasters as i would be helping to observe Tsunamis, Earthquakes and many other global hazards like rising sea levels, volcanoes and Global warming as the 5 Global Hazards

1. IT for animation by Prof Seah Hock Soon 

• This was another one of the interesting presentations from Prof Seah on Animations in general and after that he would go through mainly what was 2D and 3D animations. I learnt the difference between them and also the 2D was more expensive and laborious to do then 3D as it is done usually through stop motion and every action needed a lot of drawing and frames. 

• 2D animation needed skilled artists at drawing these frames of actions to make a full animations. 3D animation on the other hand required knowledge on calculus to angle the lights in the animation to make it 3 dimensional, a good understanding of physics in terms of fire and water effects is also required. 3D animation requires less labour then 2D animation. 

•  Lastly, if i was able to get a opportunity or if my interests grows towards this subject i would gladly take it up and would probably be trying out 3D animation as i cant draw much and to keep things that i do simple and then come back to perfect them. Quote from Prof Seah Hock Soon 

1. Innovative Breakthroughs in Nano-Technology by Prof Ma Jan 

• The last presentation was by Prof Ma Jan on Nano Technologies and its breakthroughs in  studies that can help people around the world solve problems and health issues to make their lives easier. 

• One of these breakthroughs uses this idea that a group of smaller sized objects with a fixed surface area has more energy as it has more surface area then a single larger object. This would produce a material similar to spider-web but instead weaved by carbon to create a very hard material thats light. Spiderweb is technically the strongest material if considered by the strength to weight ratio. Another one of these example was an object that has its particles able to bend light around it so as to make it completely invisible as light just passes around it to our eyes. 

• This would be a very interesting subject to study as i would be able to study on ways to help people and that is something that is worth the time and effort put in. 

1. New Questions a have about the topic are... ... ...

 After today there are some questions that i have about the topic we are doing are 

• How exactly are we gonna read this codings and understand them better ? 
• What kind other occupations would i be able to use these skills learnt from this topic ? 
• What kind of tests are NTU students studying this topic go through ?

Day 2 Reflections  

1. Discuss how the project has deepened you understanding and broadened your awareness of the selected discipline. 

• Although my understanding of the code language has not deepened to an extreme amount but am able to see much more clearly how the images in coding works. To be able to understand just part of what these different commands work and affect the program. 

    2. Discuss what you understand now about this discipline that you were unaware of at the beginning. 

• I am now more aware of how the codes behind a page works and functions, how these codes affect different visuals in a programmes and some coding for different controls found in a programmes. Although due to my understanding, i was able to remember only a small handful. Sadly. 

1. Describe how you can connect what you have learned from doing this project to what you are learning at school. 

• The kind of teaching environment is similar as it is all down to presentation in the end as we usually learn with a lot of presentations in school.

1. Describe how you can apply what you have learned from doing this project. 

• I guess i would be able to use what i've gone through in the presentation as a learning experience to use in school to present anything i need to others in a different and more effective way.

Day 3 Reflections

- Feelings.


  After going through this 3 days of camp at NTU it feels like my field of understanding has grown by some amount but the feeling of how large complicated education in the future and around me is made me feel very small. Lastly the final day presentation, personally i felt very relieved to pull it off without much hiccup as it was kinda rushed but i was pretty much satisfied as the outcome was better than i expected. This was the first presentation that i have done on such a big stage and i can safely say that our entire group enjoyed it very much. 


- Learning Points.


  As for learning points, there were many things to learn from the camp but there were some that were more significant, to me at least. One of these include learning about the many different areas of studies at NTU had to offer and what they were about, also how enormous NTU was. Heard from my teacher, Mr Yeo that it was around 15.8 km if you were to run around the campus.  I have also learnt that we should not depend on others heavily even in group as most of the time things would not be able to run smoothly.