Monday, June 6, 2011

Individual Reflection: SST-NTU Flagship Programme (6th June 2011)

Record down what you have learnt from each plenary session.
1. Importance of Water: Dirty and Clean,
2. Revolution of Microelectronics Technology,
3. Innovation breakthroughs in Nano-Science and Nano- Technology,
4. IT for Animation,
5. Disappearing glaciers, Rising sea levels and why gravity is more important than you think.

Identify one plenary session that leaves the deepest impression. Support your choice with reasons.

7 comments:

  1. 1. Pollution has social and economical impacts; Smell, Environmental Deflation, Infections and diseases and chronic health risks can be results of polluted sources of water. The problem with modern day research is that it might compromise water usages...

    2. Electronics ENABLES and is PERVASIVE. Its key to everything. The 9 Os.

    3. Nano technology = Super small stuff! Smaller=Higher surface area=More energy=More work done!

    4: Nothing much... Learnt before.

    5. The rate of the rise of the sean level is not the same throughout. Whenever a glacier melts, the gravity holding the water to itself would release, thus causing a drop in the sea level near the glacier, but a rise in the sea level of other neighboring/towns or cities in the vincity.

    I feel that talk 3 left me with a deepest impression. I had great interest in biotechnology and nanotechnology before that, so what the speaker covered spoke to me the most.

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  2. I have learnt many new things from the plenary sessions.
    From the first plenary session, I learnt about the bad effects of water pollution, how humans pollute the water through colonization and other ways even such as through urine and faeces.
    From the second plenary session, I learnt about the timeline of microchips like how computers used to be several tons and due to microchips, computers can now be portable. We also learnt about the BRAINWAVE, on how electronics are used and how they can they help us in our everyday lives.
    From the third plenary session, I leant about nanotechnology and how they are we use them everyday without even realising and how can they help us in the future.
    From the fourth plenary session, I learnt about animation and how tedious it is to create an animation where people take months just to create a movie. I also learnt that 2D movies are actually more expensive then 3D movies
    Finally, about sea levels and gravity in the fifth plenary session, that how every object that have mass have gravity and that the attraction of this objects are stronger when they are nearer to each other

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  3. 1. Importance of Water: Dirty and Clean.

    - Dirty water is claimed to be "bad". Such water would be able to cause various types of diseases like cholera, and other bacteria. A good example of an cholera outbreak is the Haiti 2010 earthquake where sewage pipes were broken and spilled into the sea. When that happened, people used this water supposedly thought to be "clean", but it caused them to infected by the cholera.
    - Clean water is claimed to be good and potable. Usually they are treated, before ending up in people's homes. In a first-world country, the government would spend a lot of money to treat the water. One good example is the Singaporean Government, they spent millions of money, especially in the pursuit of reaching self-sufficiency in an "no-resource" country. But some developing countries spend lesser money, as most governments of such countries would normally settle the development of the country than the people's wants, which they consider the better treatment of water a want of people.

    2. Revolution of Microelectronics Technology

    - It first started with the first computer transistor, which was super big, maybe the size of a basketball, but soon, more and more people start to make it smaller, believing that the smaller it is, the more powerful it is. The first breakthrough was by Texas Instruments, which later these transistors grew smaller until 0.9mm. Imagine, just from a 300mm to a 0.9mm of transistors. That's how the revolution of microelectronics technology.

    3. Innovation breakthroughs in Nano-Science and Nano- Technology,

    - Singapore was said to have the best nano-technology on earth. That is due to the need of advancements of life. Some are needs, some are wants. One need is for our water to be properly treated, we are leaving on an island without a proper water resource, therefore, we would need to utilise wastewater, which would help in reusing water over and over again. This provides us a breakthrough in nano-technology as part of the process filters 0.5micrometer, such that only water would be able to pass through. Imagine our no-water-resource island has no such technology. This filter made and satisfied a need, allowing us to reuse water. Another want satisfied are bulletproof vest, especially on tanks, this improves and limits the lost of lives of our dear soldiers from hurtling bullets.

    4. IT for Animation

    - This is about using IT, especially the various forms of animation, the 2D, 3D animation and stop motion, and basically how IT is implemented into the animation, and comparison between the various types.

    5. Disappearing glaciers, Rising sea levels and why gravity is more important than you think.

    - Glaciers are melting, this plenary session simply describes the effects on the earth, and it gives us no excuses not to save the earth. If we continue ruining our home, sea levels near Singapore would rise astonishingly, especially with Singapore a low-lying island, it would be easily swallowed by the sea. Imagine our home flooded with water.

    Identify one plenary session that leaves the deepest impression. Support your choice with reasons.

    "Disappearing glaciers, Rising sea levels and why gravity is more important than you think", is perhaps the most important session. It gives us no excuses not to save the earth. If we continue ruining our home, sea levels near Singapore would rise astonishingly, especially with Singapore a low-lying island, it would be easily swallowed by the sea. Imagine our home flooded with water.

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  4. 1. I have learnt that water should not be taken for granted and clean water is a scarcity in many developing countries. Dirty water would bring diseases, and spread it along the community.

    2. I have learnt that microelectronics are part of our life and have big impacts on our life. It helps us perform the daily tasks we do and should not be taken for granted.

    3: I learnt that nano-science has a great contribution to our life, helping us build better structures.

    4. I learnt that animation took a long time, and traditional 2D animation making is labour intensive and causes it to have a high cost of production.

    5. Rising sea levels aren't the same at every place.

    The IT for Animation left the deepest impression. I did not know that 2D animation was labour intensive, I also did not know that Avatar did not use body paint.

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  5. One session that left the deepest impression on me is the talk about Disappearing glaciers, Rising sea levels and why gravity is more important than you think. this is as i have a great interest in environmental science so i found it the most interesting


    1. Water is very important and usually water treatment and sanitization is neglected in certain countries. This causes quick spread of water borne disease once it gets into the water. some examples are Cholera, E. coli, malaria, Typhoid and many others.

    2. Elctronics enables and it is pervasive. The 9 O’s. Asia is also the focal point for electronic companies

    3. Nano tech can help in medical sciences like specifically targeting the cancer cell or deliver drugs directly on to the viruses and bacteria

    4. Learnt this before in sec 1 but still very interesting

    5. water levels does not rise equally throughout the earth. When the glacier melts, the sea level will drop near the glacier not rise!

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  6. 1. Water resources are often compromised because of the country's economic growth, the resource that the people require to survive.When the water resources are compromised, and people keep retrieving water from the resource, the resource would be contaminated due to animal contact. the bacteria and viruses in the contaminated water resource would spread illness like cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery, brainerd diarrhea. Not all microbes are bad though, for example, yeast, helps us, and in this case, assists us in baking and alcohols in alcoholic beverages. The pollution should bother us as it produces a lot of bad smell, etc.

    2. I learnt that thanks to electric circuitry, computers has become more powerful and miniaturized, ever since the first computer was invented. The Integrated Circuit (IC) was invented in 1958, which had 1 transistor, 3 capacitors, and 1 resistor, but today, ICs have millions of transistors, capacitors, and resistors. I also learnt that electronic engineers and another job demand the highest salaries too. The goal of every electronic engineers is energy harvesting, which means that the machine is ever-lasting, and if within a living thing, one surgical operation is needed and thats all.

    3. I learnt that there is, and will be a need to be able to make circuits smaller as the smaller the machines are the more efficient they would be. For example, if machines able to be made small enough to enter the blood stream without making the patient uncomfortable, then the machines can be programmed to target harmful substances like cancer cell in the bloodstream. There are basically 2 methods to nano-technology, and that is to bring down the size or grow it from scratch. The goal of probably every nano-scientist is probably to make "materials with 10x the strength of steel, and yet only a fraction of its weight, shrinking all of the information housed at the Library of Congress into the size of a sugar cube, and detecting cancerous tumors when they are only a few cells in size". Nano-tech can also be used in warfare - for example, editing the army uniform to trick the eye more, there could even be an invisibility cloak in the future, or strengthening the amour of the uniform to make it light and very bullet-proof, and more maneuverability.

    4. I learnt that producing 2-D films are more expensive than producing 3-D films as the labour cost of 2-D films are a lot more expensive than the labour cost of 3-D films. Maths is also used in animating films, like Geometric Modeling, Linear Algebra, Calculus, and all the laws of physics like Dynamics of Fire, Water, and Fabric Movement. I also learnt that "Everyone can be an inventor, "Take the first step, start something big", and "keep it simple & perfect it later".

    5. I learnt that, in short, "sea-level rise will not be the same everywhere"

    6. The first lecture left me with the deepest impression as the professor kept the lecture interesting and deeply opened me to the world out there, where people were living in places with no clean water.

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  7. PLENARY SESSIONS

    1. Importance of Water: Dirty and Clean
    Humans have been trying the solve the "mark" since thousand years ago and still stuck at the problem till today. The diseases that bad water brings are cholera, dysentery, typhoid fever and brainerd diarrhoea.

    2. Revolution if Microelectronics Technology
    Computers which weighed super heavy, powered by vacuum tubes had transformed over the ages to modern day Personal Computers. Electronics provide Entertainment, Medicine, Transport....
    Bio Radio Auto Info Nano Water = H2O Audio Video Energy = m.c2

    3. Innovation breakthroughs in Nano-Science and Nano-Technology
    Smaller material --> more surface area = more energy

    4. IT for Animation
    Types of animation: Stop Motion, 2D animation (hand drawn), 3D animation (figures)
    The use of mathematics in animation including movies and games.

    5. Disappearing glaciers, Rising sea levels and why gravity is more important than you think.
    Geodesist are people - measure shape and size of the earth, gravity field and how it changes over time.

    My favourite plenary session is "Disappearing glaciers, Rising sea levels and why gravity is more important than you think." Favourite quote "Sea-level rise will not be the same everywhere."

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