Day 2 Reflections

Today's activities
We met at the function room at 7:20 a.m. for breakfast. After breakfast, our group, Project 5, headed to the Civil Engineering lab to conduct our activities. We had a briefing from Dr Cheung Sai Hung and his assistants. We then proceeded to start planning our build. Then, we started building the water tower.  Even though our water tower was far from the best, we still had lots of fun building it.

Learning Points
I learnt that some shapes are more stable and distribute weight more evenly than others, such as triangles. As the group leader, I also learnt how to work better with my group in order to get more work done efficiently.

How it has affected my understanding of the discipline?
I now know that there is more to building design than just aesthetics or features, which are both important, but actually being able to efficiently make the structure safe and stable while still maintaining it's looks and use is more important.

How can it be applied elsewhere?
I am able to apply this knowledge in the current ADMT topic, which is Architectural Design, as the stability of a building is fundamental to it's safety and design.

My insights
Even though we had some good ideas about how the water tower should be built, we thought we had a long time to do it, and procrastinated. In the end, we did finish our tower, but many parts of it were rushed and not done properly. Therefore, our water tower was not very successful. If I had a chance to redo the whole project, I would have got the group to start working on the tower earlier, as it would have definitely made it a lot better.

Day 1 Reflections

1. What sounds interesting about this project?

I like the fact that it applies to real world situations and benefit us outside of this program. It it also a competition, which will motivate us to do better in order to win.

2. What do you think you can learn from this project?

I think I would be able to learn about the factors affecting the integrity of a structure, as well as what kind of shapes or objects would make the structure more stable. I would then be able to apply this knowledge into other real-world situations such architectural design. 

3. Any immediate questions regarding the project?

I would like to know how the concept of the water tower or the concept of stable structures can be used in everyday life. I also wonder if there are more efficient or practical ways of creating something with the same purpose of the water tower, which do not take up as much space.

1 point from each Plenary session, total of 3.

1. I learnt that the different layers of sediment in the ground accumulated over the history of the earth, we can find out when natural disasters happen, and how serious they were. Also, by studying the occurring patterns of natural disasters, we are able to predict when it might occur next and take steps to reduce it's impact.

2. I learnt that creating an animation from scratch takes a lot of effort, taking hundreds of artists and lots of hands-on work. Many different processes are also used, such as drawing every single frame, painting them, and putting everything together.
However, the producers do not give up and eventually completed the whole anime, some of them taking years to complete. This shows that they have great perseverance and motivation to keep going. I learnt that as long as I work hard towards something, I will be able to reach it some day.

"Everybody can be an inventor. Take the first step, start something big. Keep it simple and perfect it later." (-Prof Seah Hock Soon, 2013)

3. I learnt that even though the world may already seem so technologically advanced, there are still lots of things that we have not made use of yet, such as nanotechnology, which brings technology to a whole new level, quite literally so. I feel that we have barely scratched the tip of the iceberg on how potentially effective technology can be.