Practising Entrepreneurship, Engineering and Leadership

A legacy in hand, a list of plannings in paper, hundreds of ideas to be unleashed and the time has come.

I have a legacy by thrust from Seniors and Prof. Establish a club. A very own student driven club which does hands on projects.

A semester has passed, silence remained but not totally no work done. Experience piling, personnel identified, the route in mind has become clearer, self enriching to "Ready Mode". These indicates THE GAME HAS BEGUN. Remember 28th May. (lol, just to make it cool)

Embrace the coming challenges, threat this as my start-ups. It gonna be fun.
Preparing business plan. Get Funding. Execute ( the most important). Lets Do It !

Bicycle Trip to Taiping

Here's the map of my Le tour. Total journey 100km.
Destination: Taiping Lake Garden.
Origin: USm Engineering Campus.




Hooray..bicycle trip...was being crazy and naive...


I planned a bicycle trip to taiping. never thought of how far it could be.


I asked my friend, how long you take from taiping to campus. He said:" 45 minutes".





Then my instinct tell me...Not that far really....


Turns out.....





Really nice in the beginning..Along paddy field take picture...Enjoy the 'kampung' scene, despite got a lot of lorries...dangerous...not a peacefull journey along.



Then i reached the next town, bagan serai which i think its near but in fact took me more than an hour to reached. Looking at the sign board, oh gosh its 41 km away. Let me see, i calculate, one hour 10 km...40 km means... 4 hours!! Another buddy beside me, dillion was schocked too. We planned a day trip, started late today..due to bed lazying and dim sum breakfast. we start at eleven. 4 hours go, 2 hours play, 4 hours back. Back before night has come. So the speed must constant or more..no less...


After strong determination and self empowerment, we made it to Taiping. Only one choice to be made. One place to go...where? Maxwell hill, Lake garden, Zoo, Mc Donalds? At last i chose lake garden as people said its everlasting peaceful there..Lets go!!




Took a uphill down hill before reach there. In the end, it is very worthy.That place is utterly well preserved. The grass there never longer than 5cm. Nice Nice, you can find zen at there. This place is also a nice place to hang out with girls.(if they like nature, and not super shopaholics)

I just put some of these here because i put almost all into facebook. No reason to put back the same things. These few picture can let you imagine the beauty of Taiping Lake Garden. Another "why" i feel so happy because i travel hard to reach here, and in the end not disappointing.

Taiping was a place that rains alot..Hope its not raining today. Well it did, just a bit. Halfway back from the garden, God fool me with 5 minutes heavy rain. Big painful raindrop...We keep moving and back to campus after this little joke.

Along the journey, i saw a couple of cyclist from western country. Duh! They are fast. Well geared, strong stamina...We wave at each other giving ecouraging sign. I was motivated. I can head back to campus with expected time. Yes i can.

Back to my second home, Parit Buntar, i got this trip celebrated with Lamp chop with mustard butter, mixed garden salad and carrot milk in Hotel Damai.

great, next time will get a BMX and nice suit to somewhere further...

No boundaries

I never watch American Idols...But this holiday, got nothin lively in dorm, thus download two last espisod-the Amrican Idols Finale. Well, just watch the last 2 espisod but i feel the charisma of a star...especially a new star.

Kris and Adam...you have got the world..no matter who wins. But typically, for my personal favourite, i really like Adam's Singing. Since i know he sings " Cryin" by aerosmith, i think...wow this is rocking and i like high pitch voices. Adam shows it all. No offence. My favourite "No boundaries " still goes to Adam's Version. This song is beautiful.

No Boundaries by Kara DioGuardi (”Kara’s Song”)
Seconds hours so many days
You know what you want but how long can you wait
Every moment last forever if you feel you’ve lost your way
What if your chances are already gone
Started believing that I could be wrong
But you give me one good reason to fight and never walk away
Coz hear I am — still holding on!
Every step you climb another mountain
Every breathe its harder to believe
You’ll make it through the pain (or through all your aches and pains)
Weather the hurricaneTo get to that one thing
When you think the road is going nowhere
Just when you’ve almost gave up on your dreams
Then take it by the hand and show you that you can
You can go higher
You can go deeper
There are no boundariesAbove and beneath you
B-reak every rule coz there’s nothing between you and your dreams
Every step you climb another mountain
Every breathe its harder to believe

Engineer-the making

Recently i worked on a car modification project. I am assigned to design the piston crown. Henry is a great guy to worked with. He is a master student and he teaches me a lot. Some other students prefer to work themselve because they do really want to teach other people. To them is a burden being a teacher.

Well, luckily i got Henry. He assigned me an important task and teach me how to be an engineer. being an engineer, we design and decide. Once we have what we want like design a thing, you have to think for the technician. Make their life easier by design machining wise items. As an engineer you have lots to think. And only experience can make this process faster.

Carpe Diem

Thanks Liz for the word you've got for me.

A phrase from Horace...carpe diem quam minimum credula postero. Seize the day and place no trust in tomorrow.

Its a good phrase to counter procrastination. Make full use of what you have. You will never know what next in the future.

Compile and run....

Georgetown Gourmet

Okay, i was in my campus for a damn month of my holiday, damn damn damn...everytime lunch time, dinner time, this word will come out from my mouth. So this weekend, i am going to be a gourmet...At first, i want to go Ipoh..but...couldnt get a car...

Well, my will overcome every problem...Go Georgetown instead. So me and kenneth, the cabin fever duo are going to have georgetown foodseeker.

First food spotted is the Tan Jetty's prawn fritter.

We went there right after a 5 minutes walk from Jetty. That place looks like supplying prawn fritters,'lo bak' and 'dou gan' (toufu fried with some meat). We asked for eating there and the boss seems good with this. We order all types of what they have. Lobak and prawn fritters are very delicious as they just come out "JUST FRIED". The chilli sauce is very good and make a perfecr match for these fried food.

It was a satisfying kick start for kenneth and me.

Lets keep going, we continue walk to Cintra Lane where we planned to stay overnight. Sadly, the super cheap hostel was closed. What! but we dont worry much, there were alot of alternatives and at least there is a big standing TUNE HOTEL nearby, so no worries for shelter. Walking along Cintra Street, we saw a nice aunty selling Curry Chee Cheong Fun.

If you like this, you can find this Curry CCF in Cintra Lane (Lebuh Cintra) and look for Kim Maou Cafe. You can get a home made curry taste for the old lady. Behind where we sit also served red bean soup. You can have either boiling hot one or iced cold.

***the furthur reading contain no picture, sorry for no visual aid************

Next, we walk to Komtar and take a bus to Gurney Plaza for the movie " Angels and Demons ".

i am not going to talk about the movie here, its only restricted for FOOD.

Night time falls, we get another hostel which is named Crytal Hostel where it is located at the end Cintra lane and intersect with Lebuh Chulia. From the intersection walk another 5 minutes on the right. That place is kinda clean and economical. RM 40 for two ppl room with air conditional. Good Deal.

For dinner, we have mamak food. I get the Maggie Goreng with Tom Yam taste. The mamak stall is situated along Penang Road beside the big polis station. Beware of bird shit there, as we saw extermely lot of bird shit under the two huge tree there! Got half full in the stomach, go further up to Upper peang Road where it is a very happening place in Georgetown. There are many pubs, clubs, disco there. That time when we were the was the EPL match between ManUtd and Arsenal. ManUtd just need to grab at least one point to become the season champion. Nah, no football, although its very happening but we went there for Burger.haha there is a burger stall outside SOHO club with very good burger. I had a beef + egg burger.

*********end of non photo description***********

We had a overnight stay in Crytal. The next day...

Once kenneth opened his eyes, " david, dim sum lo"...aiks...We get out ass up from the bed and head to Anton Road for the dim sum, recommended by the hostel manager. When we reach Kimberly Road and Carvarnaon Road intersection, we saw Sher Thor Kopitiam. hahaha we ate in advanced. I got myself a LOH MEE. Its kinda good with the sauce is not so saturated as what i dislike the one sold in my school cafe. Aiks...This one is very good and 80% of the tables got his Loh Mee.

Nice, we continue our seek of dim sum. we walk walk walk for a long distance and finally see Giant hypermarket as the Anton Road landmark. We got there finally after a....20 minutes walk?

Whoa, that place is full of people! The whole food court is theirs.

The siew mai is good, the egg tart is good, the ccf is good, the char siew pau is bad, the lotus leaf rice is so so...This is how i summarised this dim sum as i am 70% full with the previous Loh Mee.lol...Mistake made.haha...at the end we play scissor paper rock to finish the tables food.

Whoa,what a fullfilling breakfast. Actually there is more to eat. Along the Burma road where is half way to Anton road, there is a shop sell really nice fishballs named Hoai Ann. But we really cannot afford to fill in our stomach, so save it for next time.

We back to hostel and pack our belongings back campus. Its been a habit to tast Cendol whenever i am in Georgetown. This time i wanna try the underdog one. There is a very famous Cendol in Penang Road. It is a big contrast between them. One with big crowd, the opposite one with one, two people. Same price from both. So i curious, why the underdog stays there, it's like open a supermarket in front of Tesco. So out of curiosity i buy cendol from the less famous one.

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3-5 seconds

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"Zep..Zepp...Zepp...Shurrrpppp....

Tasted almost the same. But i found the cendol of this stall is greener and shorter ( which is not as good as the famous one, greener means more coloring, shorter...who wants short short one) then the red beans is smaller, and this cendol is sweeter than the famous one comparitively. So it could be more syrup that the coconut sugar...Erm i think that distinguish two o them. But why there is people buyng from him...

One, people who cant wait....

Two, some motocyclist wanna drive thru buy cendol, they cant get cendol from the famous one by "ride" thru...

Three, curious people like us....~sweat~

Before that we wanna get some 'tam bun pia' and 'tao shar pia' back. For those, i recommend Him Heang and Ghee Hiang. Kenneth wanna have both for his mum and i just wanna have either. Unfortunately, Him Heang HQ closed on Sunday. So we only can get Ghee Heang, the oldest brand in Penang for the pias.

Thats basically my georgetown backpack experience. I got myself a RC car in Penang Street for RESEARCH PURPOSE. Its very cheap. Total all RM14 including batteries.LOL...Going to dissemble it in 3 hours.hehehe....

Grab the opportunity

Hymm...today i learn one thing which is be grab every opportunity.

I was walking along the foyer in my school and was stopped by watching the big flat screen in the wall displaying Lego Mindstrom clips....me and jun lii were laughing the funny clips seeing those lego robots tricked the public.

Then my professor is beside us and laughing as well..after we have finished. i turned to him and asked his opinion about future plans on SAE.

I told him that maybe next week or 2 will see him for this. He said a word i dunno know whether is in latin or spanish " cardium "(roughly spelled). i stunned and stared at him. No idea what you said. " Car.. means grab, dia means day/ opportuniy,...you know in western, students dont lt their professor go away just like this, i have a minute now upstairs in my office and might have no more next week..."

Quickly i realised it means he free now ," How about now " i said. " Yea, thats the spirit" We like run up two stairs to his office and have a brief planning for the club activity.

Prof mentioned to me what we need to do is having a persistant execution, you do it in one year and still will be doing it for te next 3-4 years. That is what a brutal fighter do. keep fighting forever...

Also you will never be as busy as the oversea students here in USM...Busy is just an excuse and poor time management..priortise...

yea...you are right...watch out, we will have crazy stuff to make soon...!!

Are you a final year student?

So i am here in USM for a year. As a freshman, you always looked noob. You dont know anything, you look at a stuff made with eyes opened...bla bla bla.

Indeed, i was partially noob in the first semester but i levelled up very fast.

Second semester, active being active in many students projects and activities mainly engineering field. i was and now still being asked (in lab and school) :" are you a final year student?"

whoa!? surely i take it as a compliment. I looked like a senior. Indeed, sometimes i feel that way. I mixed around with seniors and worked together. I learn stuff from them and i benefited alot, especially from my mentor.

Sometimes i teaches what i know to my seniors, teaching electronics to electronics students, advising how a project should be done, talk to professor like he is my supervisor, approaching companies outside etc etc....Its not weird if people get me wrong. they thought i am a year four students. i might looked like mature but most of the time is my act.

Being that way is somehow 'intimate' people with wrong impression. hehehe...but sometimes i cant hide my childishness....my seniors always say, you look mature sometimes but also act cute ocassionally.Hey, i am cute what...hahaha lolololol...

The worst is....the guard in library. she asked:" Kamu ni PHD student ke?"

~sweat~

ROBOCON 09...

10th of may marks the end of robocon stuff to me. Final champions of ABU robocon 09 is MMU.

For a new team, fresh players like us, i think we had tried our best and mark our trail to quarter final. Not bad...but we cab do better!!

From what i see, ROBOCON is an great platform to apply mechanical skills, perform mechatronics application and programming all real time possibilities. MMU is really a great team, you can see their performance is unbeatable...Records and records breaking. They deserved to represent Malaysia to Tokyo.

However there is a flaw in Robocon 09. A all time favourite UTM is withdrawned from the contest. They were caught in video that they practise using the game field earlier for hours while other teams were schedule to test run for merely 10 minutes.

They are irrespected by majority of the spectators and hence they withdrawed the game. Personally i felt its a lost for not having UTM in this game field. They were the giants and they were the only team that able the treat MMU.

Well...a mistake pay a lot.

Back to robocon, i decided to pay a visit to MMU robots. I saw alot of great electronics application that implemented by the students. they were good and i can see their creativeness and hardwork. This is what i am looking for. The application of engineering knowledge. Through doing projects, we will realised what we know is limited and after we learn more than just from reading books.

So, now on. I was eager to equipped myself with all kinds of engineering knowledge, mechnical and electronics... These two are unseparatable...Machine needs a good mechanism and intelligent program. There are a lot more to learn....

Okay, lets take a lot of USM robots. The first one is called traveller. Traveller need to be stabil were it boards on cargo. I was in traveller team. We have a few generations and this is our latest one. I was the programmer of traveller. I need to utilised power window, Infra red sensor and servo motors in this robots and program to make it autonomous.

the second one is called autonomous carrier. It is design to do line tracking and carry traveller to the goal zone. while the third one is manual carrier. It is manually operated by a player in game field to support the carrier travellering around.

Seeing the robots performing task as programmed is the greatest please of a programmer.

USM march to elimination round

Robocon has reached the final of group league. USM won all three matches and marched on to the final 16.

First match, USM vs CIAST. USM didnt performed well as this is the very first match for team USM. We only manage to reach checkpoint 1 only and didnt pass the mountain. Luckily our opponent also did the same but they has violation. Therefore USM won by a small difference.

2nd match, USM seems to be improved. We lead all the way till the last checkpoint. But traveller did not hit the drum as the timing fails to be position accurately. This is a big significant of improvement.

Last match of the league, traveller has improved in a day. by me...lol... We improved the effieciency and accuracy of traveller and the possiblity of success is nearly 90%.
So 3rd match USM won by flying colors and accomplished the goal....Hearld the victory drum.!!!

My Role in Robocon part 2

Basically, what I am involved in the team is programming the traveler.
I am using PIC Basic pro to do write the program. Besides I am also the key person in designing external circuit for motors, sensors, switches and relays.

I have learnt a lot on how to get external signals from PIC board. How not to use voltage regulator, servo system and I am working on doing PWM is possible.
We are using power window to do the arm swinging. However, the swing is too fast for 12v supply to power window. Now I have 3 solutions. The goal is achieve slow swinging to the limit.

Solution 1: supply lower voltage across power window.
This can be done by using lower voltage battery. –However, lower voltage battery may not produce enough power for power window due to lower current supply.
Second idea is use voltage regulator.-The risk for this is although voltage step down but Power window motor still keep on absorb high current. When high current go across regulator, it burns…

Third idea is use resistance to cut down the voltage. At first I use rheostat. It works for 3 seconds but after that smoke comes out. Ouch!!
Solution 2: use relays to switch in few times.
The arm will swing like stepper motor. A full done is like 8 small degree revolutions. This is a successful one but relay are not making for fast switching….so I am risking the sticking relays happening.

Solution 3: PWM with external board and without using relays.
I think this can be done and I roughly know the schematic diagram. I need rheostat(maybe) and NPN transistor . I have one experiment with bread board and it works.

HOW a PWM works- Prof Horizon teach me before how this stuff works.

Let me take an analogy, it is basically like switching off and on a ceiling fan. When you on the fan, it get 12v supply, if you off the you got 0 v. If you on 5 secs , off 5 secs continuously through, you will get 50% duty cycle, so its like playing with the pulse width.
Use a transistor (MJE 3055T) as switch. High port(as you like) to give out signal from PIC/ICD to act as switch on off action. Then the motor will move in depend on your on off frequency.