Spring is here

Ah, the season of change, and rebirth is finally here! Flowers blooming, birds chirping in the air and bright sun in your face! Finally I can take off my jacket that I've been wearing since October the 1st, and start basking in sunlight every single day =)

Spring's great in Nottingham. Sure, many people would say that spring here is like Malaysia's 'normal' weather, but heck, you are missing the finer points. In UK, we have the famous 4 seasons. Hence, we get to experience the transition between them as well! Ever since I've arrived in fall, leaves were turning gold and brown, preparing for the arrival of winter. Leaves of different colors filling up the sides of the streets, decorating it with wide array of colors was a true sight to marvel at.

The large lake in the Arboeretum covered in leaves and all

( all of the goose and penguins flew back home!

or maybe they just migrated into the next door breakfast in bed inn )

Golden Leaves of auntumn

City view from Nottingham Castle

During the cold winter, we had light rain almost everyday and not forgetting the occasional snow days of course! Waking up to a white Christmas or white outed day was totally great! The trade off was of course the days were getting shorter and night arrives at 3pm!

Miss the snow in my backyard~

Tempting to play snow angels, but if i did it alone, might kena tangkap ke balai =P

Following the lineup was spring, where the days were finally getting longer again. Weather was getting warmer, flowers starting to bloom and the bright sun with perfect cool breeze are back! Well, when you think of it, having 4 seasons ain't so bad is it? As an added bonus, NO MORE PIMPLES, wakakaka~

When you compare all of this to back home in Malaysia where it's either hot or damp all year long ain't it equally as good here? Speaking of which, that reminds me of something...

People often say, that if you don't know how to start a conversation, just ask "How's the weather going?" Well, with it being either hot or dry back home, there isn't much to talk about, is there? XD

Next up, life updates. Class has entered mid way through the 3rd semester. If anyone was following my posts, you'll be glad to know that I finally found a supervisor. Although being a part time lecturer and could only spend a few minutes with me per supervisory session, I seriously appreciate all the effort and help he provided to me so far. As of right now, I just need to finalize my project title, and hopefully my remote robot with a wrist-attached controller can be realized!

Know what? I just noticed that I watched too much of Ben 10 and Martin Mystery to get the whole wrist attached device idea. Well, I will be always a kid at heart! Who doesn't like the idea of a small controller attached to your wrist eh? With a flick of a switch or spin of a simple dial, all kinds of amazing stuff will suddenly happen and appear! HAHA~

It's Hero Time!

Got a weird suggestion from one of my lecturers though. Apparently, she is requesting for me to build a robot with cannons or rocket launchers attached. Yup, you heard me right, CANNONS AND ROCKETZ and she's 50! Apparently someone's been peeing and pooping in her garden, and she needs something to teach the 'barger' a lesson. Hehe, believe it or not, but this actually got my brain juices flowing with excitement! I actually managed to get a rough sketch of the robot and hardware related stuffs under 10 minutes! Woo-pee, one robot fresh from the oven, coming right up! =D

Well, putting the lame jokes aside, I would still need to do lots'a background reading for this topic. Studying for like virtually 5 hours everyday in the library is so not me! I need music, games and MSN and not couples doing dirty talk nor playing catch in the library~

Well, it's work time, so till next time.....

~Ciaoz~

Interim Demo Day

Putting aside the fact that I still have no supervisor for my project, I still had to focus on other stuffs for now. The main priority of the week was completing the Group Design work before demonstrating it in an interim demo to the lecturer. Things shave been going great so far. The micro controller is working, sensors all A-OK, the mechanical design for the base and component placement are done and many others were ahead of actual schedule (Wait, we had a schedule? o.O )

Well, being one of the few groups with an actual running robot in the demo area, is good enough as an achievement for us. So... introducing our design, the SmartVac, a automated self sensing and cleaning vacuum! Unfortunately it's quite naked as the exterior casing design works have not yet begun... :D

Just a few sensors connected to the controller. Nothing special

I thought a side view would look cool. What says you?

From the top

So this is the group project that we've come up with. Took us some time to actually get started as all of the components arrived late. Add a lazy 2 weeks of easter in, and you have a months worth of slack time :p

Next stop, install the vacuum and design the casing. Nuff said~

Here's a vid of the robot in action. Still have some bugs to kick out though...

That's all for now. By the way, the hunt for a supervisor still continues...

~Ciaoz~

P/S : My lecturer says my English is unusual. Anyone care to comment on that? -.-"

Waking up to a retarded day

Post is dated for April 12th, Monday...

This was undoubtedly one of the shittiest day so far. Woke up at 7 sharp, as opposed to my usual 8 for my 10 o'clock morning classes. Wasn't because of the early sunlight, but rather the obnoxious sounds, from both in and outside of the house. Who on earth laughs to comedy shows and blasts their speakers, and plays loud Gaga songs on the street! Not my way of starting my 1st day of the new semester.....

Well, in the end, got FORCED to go for classes early, and reached at 9.45 sharp. Normally the lab doors are opened by now, but somehow the lecturer forgot to open it! (Another kick in the gut). After 30 mins of waiting, there were still no sign of him. So we went to seek him and asked if there's actually any class in session. Turns out that the time-tabler got it wrong. He actually requested for a 11 o'clock class slot in a DIFFERENT LAB! When asked why, he just replies, the system is faulty... (Right... blame the system... :S)

The only bright side from all of this morning mess was, I got to bump into one of my other lecturer, Dr. Steve. He actually shares the same office with the lecturer one in question above. He told me that I got a "CLEAR First Class Distinction" on my module assignments. Well, that was enough to bright up my mood for the day, or so I thought...

Okay, bit mix of Good and Bad so far. Still equally balanced to tip off my mood. So let's move on shall we? Next, spent some time in the library reading and searching for some electronics book before going back for the 11 o'clock lecture. This session was supposed to discuss the specifications for our MATLAB coursework that would bear 50% of our final marks. Before easter, I was told that I could pick the wireless communication between 2 PC using MATLAB and sound as a Carrier topic. However, over the long break, he decided to change it to something else, and only allow this earlier title to be included if we 'COULD MANAGE' to finish up the pile load of specifications before it. Go figure...... mood dropping high time low...

AH! Great, so now my entire coursework has changed! No biggie, I'll just have to spend some extra time doing it. When leaving the class, something rather peculiar hit me on the head. (No, I don't mean a giant fly or mosquito, but wouldn't that be cool~)

Why is there only 5 people out of 40 who took this coursework title?

Suspicious much.... Fast forward, to 2 o'clock now...

After classes, I finally went to see my potential supervisor, Dr. Ahmad Lotfi, who is terrific in robotics and cybernetics! So far, he always shown in depth knowledge of the 2 disciplines, and these 2 topics have always intrigued me since I was like 4, maybe? Well, the meeting didn't turn out much as expected though. After a brief discussion with him, it appears that he is no longer allowed by the university to take any MSc projects! His reason was, the university deems him too busy and along with some other sensitive issues.

Well, if the only robotics supervisor in the entire CIB (my engineering building's name) can't take up projects, who can? The retard part here is, if you take away robotics from cybernetics, you typically have bread crumbs of it left.... no brainer much.... =.="

So right now, I'm doomed as an egg cracked onto a hot frying pan, as I can't find a supervisor. (Well, that wasn't much of a proverb, is it? ) Anyways, deadline for everything is approaching in a weeks time, and no one can replace him. Well, I got one or two personal suggestions from Dr. Ahmad on who to ask as a secondary option, "BUT" his main advice was "TO CHOOSE ANOTHER TOPIC OR AREA AS A PROJECT"

HELL NO! I've been wanting to do this since I remembered, and I'm not faulting away now. Wish me luck as the hunt for a supervisor now begins~

Signing off... Ciaoz

March and early April updates

"A Thousand Apologies..."

hehe, let's see anyone can guess where that catch line came from

Negligence is such an easy thing to do these days. I started off this blog to document my daily rantings online. But look at the freaking hiatus time I was away! Aww man, I need someone by me just to crack a whip and get me back into blogging mode =)

Ahem! Pushing aside the whip crack joke~ nothing much can be said about March. At first, I thought of piling up my assignments and projects for easter. Since I wasn't planning to go anywhere this month, it was the perfect plan! This way I could also save up money for May, where i'm planning a pre summer holiday plan. So this was the original plan la. Well organized right? I actually managed to plan a months time ahead! XD

Something unfortunate or rather surprising happened before my plan got set in action. So happened that I got all frust and emo with one of the society here. Frankly speaking, the way they organize is crap, and well, i know since I handle a few fair shares of my own before! Well, maybe I was dealing with some other stuffs too, but they are all sensitive issue alltogether. So lets leave it 'hush hush' shall we?

Finally, I ended up cooping up in the lab for 2 days straight from 10am till 5pm everyday. The result you ask? I actually got ALL of my reports, assignments and programs up and running! Amazing isn't it? Dear ol' procrastinator here managed to finish up his work. So what's left for Easter? O.o

Since Easter was my first and well deserved holidays, I spent most of my time going out for movies with friends, catch up on animes, English Series and even finally Dota again! BTW, did anyone noticed that the Medusa in 'Clash of the Titans" is so like a rip-off from DotA? I mean, sure she's hot with the scaly tail and snakey knot free hair, BUT A FREAKING BOW?!? Come on, it can't get more dense than that, can it?

Lookey! I can stare people to stone, and I hold a Bow!

Oh yea, I also managed to get a haircut! As usual, the winds are a pain to deal with. Mendoksei! Well, it ain't good looking like any of my previous hair cuts, but at least it's short!

Well, what can I say?

Looks bad? Yes

Still get a bad hair day after a walk in the city? No

More convenient while walking out? Yes

Lur'bing it? HELL YES!

That's all for now from March. Will update again as soon as I can find someone to crack that whip at me. Ah~ (masochist in the house!)

~Ciaoz~