Day 1 (and Day 3) Reflections - Ren Chang

Plenary Sessions (Day 1)

(A) My Key Learning points from each session ..

1. Importance of Water - Dirty and Clean

I learned that we must not take water for granted as bad or polluted water causes carious infectious diseases and poses chronic health risks. Bad water would also result in Economic and social impacts. What I found was interesting was the irony of social and economical developments highlighted by the speaker.

2. Revolution of Microelectronics Technology

Due to the transformation of the electronic industry, value will be added to theses products, with Asia as the focus of the electronic industry.

3. Biomedical Engineering & Technology

Nano technology leverages on the fact that when something has a smaller surface area, less every will be used. For example, fine sugars dissolve more easily as there is a larger surface area, so there will be more energy.

4. IT for Animation

Animation also involves mathematics in areas such as Geometric modeling for positing, lines and surfaces of characters. Also, Calculus is involved for the lightings of a scene. Lastly, laws of physics will also help in dynamics of water and fire. There are also some innovations for animations: for solving the problem of budgets, people are solving it by developing a drawing and animating system.

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

Sea levels will rise the highest farthest from glaciers as there will be a difference in the sea surface and the solid surfaces,so we will need to be prepared.

(B)

The plenary session that leaves the deepest impression on me is the last talk by Ms Hill. What I like about it is her being straight to the point, concise and still being able to put in interesting facts that I do not know of. Nearing the end of her talk, she also mentioned that she was in a hurry to leave soon and I like that she still appeared relaxed and wasn't rushed. About her talk, it was interesting as she brought up facts that I do not know of, such as "Sea levels will be the highest FARTHEST from the glaciers". She provided enough information for the us to reach this conclusion, and even then she still amazed me.

Day 3

1. I chose this project because this project appealed more to me, as I preferred art over science. Furthermore, I was interested in learning how photoshop works and how people use it.

3. Some challenges I encountered were that I had ruined my picture when I was working on it, or sometimes I experience difficulties using photoshop, or I do not have ideas on what to do for the project. I overcome these challenges by seeking help from the professor or the student facilitator, or from my peers (especially Norman who was sitting next to me).

4. Through this project I discover about how (and what are the functions) to manipulate a picture(s) such that we can make it fit into a scene.

5. As an individual, I have benefitted from this programme by learning more about photoshop and how people edit pictures, like shadows, layering and other functions.

6. I aspire to use photoshop better as I am new to this software.