Thursday, 31 July 2008
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
belated update on monday
monday was another ordinary day in university of southampton. there was a bit of monday blues...everyone seems to be tired and sleepy for some unknown reasons.
As the IC of the day, I have to say sorry because this post is really really late...anyway, monday was about advanced soldering practicals and more theories on AM and FM radio.
Soldering might be fun if this is the first time to try, yet it can become very challenging (sometimes frustrating as well) when the electric components become smaller and integrated circuits are involved. Probably the most exciting part today is the SMT (surface mount technology) capacitors. The SMT we are dealing with are 805which has surface area less than 50 mm^2. However, those SMT in the handphones, PDAs and other electronic devices are probably one quarter of this size...thank goodness machinery facturing is employed in soldering...though hand soldering is required when constructing prototype.
Amazingly the theory behind AM and FM radio coincides with our recent physics lecture on ocillation...anyway, waves transmitting radio signals are in simple harmonic oscillation. These theories, though far beyond A-level physics, are still pertinent to what we know and what we can apply.
Tuesday will be c programming...much more to look forward to
As the IC of the day, I have to say sorry because this post is really really late...anyway, monday was about advanced soldering practicals and more theories on AM and FM radio.
Soldering might be fun if this is the first time to try, yet it can become very challenging (sometimes frustrating as well) when the electric components become smaller and integrated circuits are involved. Probably the most exciting part today is the SMT (surface mount technology) capacitors. The SMT we are dealing with are 805which has surface area less than 50 mm^2. However, those SMT in the handphones, PDAs and other electronic devices are probably one quarter of this size...thank goodness machinery facturing is employed in soldering...though hand soldering is required when constructing prototype.
Amazingly the theory behind AM and FM radio coincides with our recent physics lecture on ocillation...anyway, waves transmitting radio signals are in simple harmonic oscillation. These theories, though far beyond A-level physics, are still pertinent to what we know and what we can apply.
Tuesday will be c programming...much more to look forward to
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
Day 9 pics
Don't be deceived if Lyn Lyn tells you she can't cook. Her fried rice is superb.
Mr Denis Nicole conducting the theory session before the hands-on.
Students working in groups of 5.
The almost final product. Testing will be done on Wed evening.
Sunday--A visit to Southampton Central~~
Yesterday was really an relaxing day for all of us as we met at 9:45 and could sleep late!Actually I woke up at 7am as I promised my friends that I would get online chatting with them. After a freshing breakfast, everybody slowly strolled down the stairs.(Sadly, our group is always on time and has to wait for others~~)
We took a bus and arrived at the Southampton Civic Centre at 11am. The weather was really nice.Actually after arriving it was free and easy and we split into several groups.
For our group, we went to West Quay and Maritime Museum.We were just amazed that even guys could shop as well(haha)! West Quay is really a place worth for shopping, can you image that one branded T-shirt only costs you 5 pounds? Or can be believe that one pair of Adidas Sports shoes only cost 15 pounds? By the way, it was Liang Xu who found this shop that had 75% price off haha. Each of us bought a lot of stuff in West Quay. Nevertheless,we also had a big hole in our pocket!!
It is really worth to visit the Maritime Museum. We had a glimp of how Titanic was built and constructed. We are just amzed by the ship models inside the museum. Sadly, we were not allowed to take pictures inside.
After that, we went to the seaside. However, the sea water was quite dirty and we only spent a few minutes there.
Overall, yesterday was a nice day for all of us and I am sure that everybody did spend money on buying gifts haha~~~
We took a bus and arrived at the Southampton Civic Centre at 11am. The weather was really nice.Actually after arriving it was free and easy and we split into several groups.
For our group, we went to West Quay and Maritime Museum.We were just amazed that even guys could shop as well(haha)! West Quay is really a place worth for shopping, can you image that one branded T-shirt only costs you 5 pounds? Or can be believe that one pair of Adidas Sports shoes only cost 15 pounds? By the way, it was Liang Xu who found this shop that had 75% price off haha. Each of us bought a lot of stuff in West Quay. Nevertheless,we also had a big hole in our pocket!!
It is really worth to visit the Maritime Museum. We had a glimp of how Titanic was built and constructed. We are just amzed by the ship models inside the museum. Sadly, we were not allowed to take pictures inside.
After that, we went to the seaside. However, the sea water was quite dirty and we only spent a few minutes there.
Overall, yesterday was a nice day for all of us and I am sure that everybody did spend money on buying gifts haha~~~
Monday, 28 July 2008
Sunday, 27 July 2008
Saturday, 26/7 -- Visit to Bath
Today, we were required to wake up nice and early in order to ensure that we got to Highfield Interchange in time to catch a bus to Southampton City Central, to in turn catch a train to Bath. Unfortunately, my corridormates (I'm Samuel) woke up a little bit (actually a lot) on the late side again, and thus we had to wolf down our breakfast at superhuman speeds. In spite of this, the travel to Bath generally went quite nicely, and we got to view what the English countryside was actually like as the train we were in sped northwards towards Bath.
When we got to Bath, we were instinctively guided towards the Sally Lunn Restaurant, the oldest house in Bath. It offered both magnificient architecture and absolutely delicious food (((: In fact, the sandwiches, buns and tea were so good, this was incontrovertibly the best meal I have had since stepping into the United Kingdom. I am very sure that Cherie, Bryan, Kin Chun, Mr Chong and Ms Tang will agree as well. x)
Moving on, we visited the famous and single defining attraction of Bath, the Roman Baths. It boasted intricate and unique Gerogian architecture that belonged to the era of yesteryear. Therefore, it was certainly an eye-opening experience, as we also got to learn more about the history of the Baths through the handy audio guides we were provided with for the selfguided tour around the Roman Baths.
Subsequently, we were allocated lots of free time for shopping, and thus the group split up and many splinters of the group proceeded to wander off into centre of town to see what else Bath has to offer. Unfortunately, (and I am sure that many can vouch for this too) Bath does not have many good deals to offer... as the shops sell products that are way out of our budget. Nevertheless, it was a fun and interesting shopping experience as we covered every inch of the shopping district in search of potentialy good deals.
The group met back at the train station at 6pm, before taking a train back to Southampton. It had been an eventful day, and I am sure that we would all be looking forward to the tour of the Southampton City Centre tomorrow too! :D
When we got to Bath, we were instinctively guided towards the Sally Lunn Restaurant, the oldest house in Bath. It offered both magnificient architecture and absolutely delicious food (((: In fact, the sandwiches, buns and tea were so good, this was incontrovertibly the best meal I have had since stepping into the United Kingdom. I am very sure that Cherie, Bryan, Kin Chun, Mr Chong and Ms Tang will agree as well. x)
Moving on, we visited the famous and single defining attraction of Bath, the Roman Baths. It boasted intricate and unique Gerogian architecture that belonged to the era of yesteryear. Therefore, it was certainly an eye-opening experience, as we also got to learn more about the history of the Baths through the handy audio guides we were provided with for the selfguided tour around the Roman Baths.
Subsequently, we were allocated lots of free time for shopping, and thus the group split up and many splinters of the group proceeded to wander off into centre of town to see what else Bath has to offer. Unfortunately, (and I am sure that many can vouch for this too) Bath does not have many good deals to offer... as the shops sell products that are way out of our budget. Nevertheless, it was a fun and interesting shopping experience as we covered every inch of the shopping district in search of potentialy good deals.
The group met back at the train station at 6pm, before taking a train back to Southampton. It had been an eventful day, and I am sure that we would all be looking forward to the tour of the Southampton City Centre tomorrow too! :D
Day 7 pics
Sally Lunn is the oldest house in Bath and is the home of the original Bath bun - an authentic regional speciality now known over the world.
Breakfast with Mr Darcy @ Jane Austen Centre.
To the RJC tutors.. UK trip in a nutshell..
Hihi.. I understand that some of you tutors fr Singapore have been popping by to have a look at what's going on here.. and finally I have time to write about life here..so will jus give a brief (ok, maybe not that brief a summary...)
Its a nice balance of work and play.. a typical day starts at about 7.30am where we make breakfast and pack lunches in groups of 4-6 people. We set off for school at 8.30am by foot and arrive at the respective departments by 9am. The 3 chem students (Teow Kwang 3P; Tao Tao 3K and Fang Zhou 3M) and myself are attached to Ganesan's lab where they do Organic synthesis.. and analysis. They are really really enthusiastic and grabbing every learning opportunity. It is hard for them as they are working with post grad's on their projects when they don't really know much about O Chem. The post grads, Lauren, Alex, Anna and Wendy are really hospitable and patient with the students, trying to explain as many things as possible.. at times they get stressed out cos our students ask so many questions, which is actually great. They have been introduced to Clayden and numerous reaction mechanisms and of course analytical techniques, eg. TLC, HPLC etc..
Dr Ganesan has also been really kind with his time. Last week he actually stayed back to give us some theory lessons on their projects and spectroscopy until 7pm! They were really confused by NMR.. but managed to roughly figure out what usually takes 4 lectures in an hour.. so that was quite impressive as well. Looks like we have our next olypiad students in the making. The other 20 students go to the Electronics and Computer Science department and work on interesting projects every alternate day:) Mr Denis Nicole has been doing so much for the students. We feel really grateful to him for his time and efforts to make this a good stay for us. Francis has been photoshopping amazing postcards to document our activities.. scroll down to have a look!
At about 3 plus to 4 pm Francis and I conduct Physics and Chemistry lessons for the students. So far I've done Kinetics tutorial + Kinetics Quiz.. next week we will do a little more kinetics and I can start on Chem Equilibria Tutorial. (Thanks to Jeannie agreeing to having the Chem Eq Lecture's online and Jerome, Wendy and Jaimee@Edutech I've saved precious tutorial time!)
The more energetic pp go for some exercise after lessons and by about 7pm its time to cook and eat dinner (even the boys have been making very impressive dishes! Altho I think we are running out of ideas of what to cook. Some group had frozen pizza today I heard.. ) at 9.20 pm we brief the I/Cs for the next day, followed by debrief/ briefing of the whole grp by the I/Cs at 9.30 pm and we debrief the ICs of the day at 10 plus pm. We are trying to make use of this opportunity to let the students lead the group, a pair at a time for 2 days each time. Hopefully they learn something useful even though it can be a little tempting to just be authoritarian about things :P
Can see the students are getting tired cos the poor dears have to hand in reflections and experiment reports almost every night. Contrary to what you teachers may believe, they are also busy doing their GP, Maths, PW and Bio... so be kind to them when they get back..
We go out to play on Thursday and the weekends. Last Thursday we went to Stonehenge & Salisbury, while today we went to Bath and tmrw we will be exploring Southampton.
Next week we will be looking forward to London and Cambridge in between many hours of work...
And of course we are missing school, home, colleagues, classmates, various different "sisters", "mums", good friends... so do take care and see you soon!
Love, Lyn
Its a nice balance of work and play.. a typical day starts at about 7.30am where we make breakfast and pack lunches in groups of 4-6 people. We set off for school at 8.30am by foot and arrive at the respective departments by 9am. The 3 chem students (Teow Kwang 3P; Tao Tao 3K and Fang Zhou 3M) and myself are attached to Ganesan's lab where they do Organic synthesis.. and analysis. They are really really enthusiastic and grabbing every learning opportunity. It is hard for them as they are working with post grad's on their projects when they don't really know much about O Chem. The post grads, Lauren, Alex, Anna and Wendy are really hospitable and patient with the students, trying to explain as many things as possible.. at times they get stressed out cos our students ask so many questions, which is actually great. They have been introduced to Clayden and numerous reaction mechanisms and of course analytical techniques, eg. TLC, HPLC etc..
Dr Ganesan has also been really kind with his time. Last week he actually stayed back to give us some theory lessons on their projects and spectroscopy until 7pm! They were really confused by NMR.. but managed to roughly figure out what usually takes 4 lectures in an hour.. so that was quite impressive as well. Looks like we have our next olypiad students in the making. The other 20 students go to the Electronics and Computer Science department and work on interesting projects every alternate day:) Mr Denis Nicole has been doing so much for the students. We feel really grateful to him for his time and efforts to make this a good stay for us. Francis has been photoshopping amazing postcards to document our activities.. scroll down to have a look!
At about 3 plus to 4 pm Francis and I conduct Physics and Chemistry lessons for the students. So far I've done Kinetics tutorial + Kinetics Quiz.. next week we will do a little more kinetics and I can start on Chem Equilibria Tutorial. (Thanks to Jeannie agreeing to having the Chem Eq Lecture's online and Jerome, Wendy and Jaimee@Edutech I've saved precious tutorial time!)
The more energetic pp go for some exercise after lessons and by about 7pm its time to cook and eat dinner (even the boys have been making very impressive dishes! Altho I think we are running out of ideas of what to cook. Some group had frozen pizza today I heard.. ) at 9.20 pm we brief the I/Cs for the next day, followed by debrief/ briefing of the whole grp by the I/Cs at 9.30 pm and we debrief the ICs of the day at 10 plus pm. We are trying to make use of this opportunity to let the students lead the group, a pair at a time for 2 days each time. Hopefully they learn something useful even though it can be a little tempting to just be authoritarian about things :P
Can see the students are getting tired cos the poor dears have to hand in reflections and experiment reports almost every night. Contrary to what you teachers may believe, they are also busy doing their GP, Maths, PW and Bio... so be kind to them when they get back..
We go out to play on Thursday and the weekends. Last Thursday we went to Stonehenge & Salisbury, while today we went to Bath and tmrw we will be exploring Southampton.
Next week we will be looking forward to London and Cambridge in between many hours of work...
And of course we are missing school, home, colleagues, classmates, various different "sisters", "mums", good friends... so do take care and see you soon!
Love, Lyn
Day 6 of 21
An excellent start to the day – because we met at 8:30 AM and could sleep in late. (well, some of us, anyway.) Lemuel was fortunate enough to be awoken at 8:30 AM and his breakfast was half a packet of biscuits that he grabbed from the pantry on the way out. (but he was kind enough to share them with us scavengers anyway. what a guy. :)
The Physics students had a brief 'come to Southampton Uni to study' advertisement. After that, Professor Nicole began the lesson proper with the basic theory of radios and how they work
Prof. Nicole: do you take radios as a subject in the A-levels?
us: uhm no...
apparently radios is a subject here. :\ anyway, we received a watered-down version of first year Electronics notes, basically about, well, how radios work. FUNFACT: The AM/FM on your radio? That stands for Amplitude Modification and Frequency Modulation. Learn something new every day.
after that, we were given a circuit diagram of a model radio. to give you a rough idea of how it looks like, it's sort of a cross between this and this. (neither is very accurate though). we were also taught to solder, which basically means melting iron using a solder (like a penknife but with a tip heatable to 300+ deg C), then letting it cool, hardening the melted iron. in this way two pieces of iron (tips of two wires, the metal parts at the bottom of a circuit board) can be joined.
basically it's just a way of holding an electric circuit in place.
we experimented with a solder on some helpless wires until we felt comfortable, then pretty much spent the rest of our lab session fixing the radio together. just two things:
1. melted iron generates a HORRIBLE amount of fumes. Even with a fan to suck away most of the fumes, pretty much all of us inhaled about two years' worth of throat cancer.
2. Kin Chun can solder a 'joint' in 2 seconds. i'm not kidding. kowtow _____orz___
after that we had a chemistry tutorial - or supposed to, anyway - apparently the chem students were held up. (not sure what they did) so we pretty much had an ad hoc physics lesson without notes. um, yeah.
the day ended with free time, (plus sports, dinner, card games, sleep, all the usual stuff...we're going to Bath tomorrow - our first self-organized visit. everyone's already excited, and the I/Cs (yours truly) are nervous. it'll be quite a day tomorrow.
The Physics students had a brief 'come to Southampton Uni to study' advertisement. After that, Professor Nicole began the lesson proper with the basic theory of radios and how they work
Prof. Nicole: do you take radios as a subject in the A-levels?
us: uhm no...
apparently radios is a subject here. :\ anyway, we received a watered-down version of first year Electronics notes, basically about, well, how radios work. FUNFACT: The AM/FM on your radio? That stands for Amplitude Modification and Frequency Modulation. Learn something new every day.
after that, we were given a circuit diagram of a model radio. to give you a rough idea of how it looks like, it's sort of a cross between this and this. (neither is very accurate though). we were also taught to solder, which basically means melting iron using a solder (like a penknife but with a tip heatable to 300+ deg C), then letting it cool, hardening the melted iron. in this way two pieces of iron (tips of two wires, the metal parts at the bottom of a circuit board) can be joined.
basically it's just a way of holding an electric circuit in place.
we experimented with a solder on some helpless wires until we felt comfortable, then pretty much spent the rest of our lab session fixing the radio together. just two things:
1. melted iron generates a HORRIBLE amount of fumes. Even with a fan to suck away most of the fumes, pretty much all of us inhaled about two years' worth of throat cancer.
2. Kin Chun can solder a 'joint' in 2 seconds. i'm not kidding. kowtow _____orz___
after that we had a chemistry tutorial - or supposed to, anyway - apparently the chem students were held up. (not sure what they did) so we pretty much had an ad hoc physics lesson without notes. um, yeah.
the day ended with free time, (plus sports, dinner, card games, sleep, all the usual stuff...we're going to Bath tomorrow - our first self-organized visit. everyone's already excited, and the I/Cs (yours truly) are nervous. it'll be quite a day tomorrow.
Some advice from Yijie and Samuel to our 2 new I/Cs (:
Dear friends,
As we all know, Xiaoxi and Peijun will be ours I/Cs for the next two days, namely Sunday and Monday. Therefore, here are some words of advice that we are offering to the both of them as we wish them the best of luck in the jurisdiction of their duties for the succeeding two days.
Firstly, do remember to give allowance time for every activity or meeting you organise. It is important to recognize that our group of students are both highly motivated and enthusiastic, and thus giving everyone that little bit of buffer time for meetings can help contribute to a fun and stress-free environment, without us being continuously looking anxiously at our watches.
Secondly, it is an imperative that you capture everyone's attention by ensuring that you get the entire group to congregate before addressing them. In this way, everyone will be cognizant of what is going on at all times, and this will be extremely helpful in ensuring a successful activity. One effective way to go about this would be appealing to the de facto leader of the group such that he/she can help you to grab everyone's attention very quickly.
Thirdly, it is paramount that you have a good idea of the planned activities that are about to take place under your charge, so as to ensure that everything is within your control at all times.
Fourthly, you should always be flexible and open to changes and modifications to the originally planned course of action, because it is inevitable that all plans are subject to change. What you can control is your ability to respond to changes in a positive manner.
Lastly, you should research more about the area you will be visiting, so that you are in a better position to drum up interest among us about the location we will be visiting. An interested and excited group is extremely helpful in ensuring a memorable trip or activity.
Oh yes, and of course, one more thing. This will definitely come in handy... Do come up with five more pieces of advice for your succeeding I/Cs so that you can be prepared when Mr Chong and Ms Tang ask you for more advice in the very near future.. (((:
regards,
Yijie and Samuel.
As we all know, Xiaoxi and Peijun will be ours I/Cs for the next two days, namely Sunday and Monday. Therefore, here are some words of advice that we are offering to the both of them as we wish them the best of luck in the jurisdiction of their duties for the succeeding two days.
Firstly, do remember to give allowance time for every activity or meeting you organise. It is important to recognize that our group of students are both highly motivated and enthusiastic, and thus giving everyone that little bit of buffer time for meetings can help contribute to a fun and stress-free environment, without us being continuously looking anxiously at our watches.
Secondly, it is an imperative that you capture everyone's attention by ensuring that you get the entire group to congregate before addressing them. In this way, everyone will be cognizant of what is going on at all times, and this will be extremely helpful in ensuring a successful activity. One effective way to go about this would be appealing to the de facto leader of the group such that he/she can help you to grab everyone's attention very quickly.
Thirdly, it is paramount that you have a good idea of the planned activities that are about to take place under your charge, so as to ensure that everything is within your control at all times.
Fourthly, you should always be flexible and open to changes and modifications to the originally planned course of action, because it is inevitable that all plans are subject to change. What you can control is your ability to respond to changes in a positive manner.
Lastly, you should research more about the area you will be visiting, so that you are in a better position to drum up interest among us about the location we will be visiting. An interested and excited group is extremely helpful in ensuring a memorable trip or activity.
Oh yes, and of course, one more thing. This will definitely come in handy... Do come up with five more pieces of advice for your succeeding I/Cs so that you can be prepared when Mr Chong and Ms Tang ask you for more advice in the very near future.. (((:
regards,
Yijie and Samuel.
Saturday, 26 July 2008
Friday, 25 July 2008
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