Mechatronics Engineering: Part 1

Bismillah

Ho yeahh.. this is probably my first written blog post. Okey the topic for today is the course that I'm doing in Uni.

I'm currently taking this degree in The University of Sheffield and I'm currently in the process of going into 2nd year. Alhamdulillah my 1st year results are good. I really hope my performance would continue for the rest of my uni years. So... I've been asked by many people a lot of time on the degree that I'm taking in uni. and for many times after explaining, I always get a puzzled look. The kinda look you'll get if you talk nonsense to someone. Hence, for most of the time, I failed in expressing the real content of my course.

Mechatronics course is a new engineering course. It was created to cater a totally different field in engineering. Different as it is, it is not new. They used to call it ‘Instrumentation’ (prehistoric), and then they move to ‘control and systems’ (middle ages) and NOW they call it Mechatronics. If you break it down, Mechatronics means Mechanical, Electronics and Systems (although the word system was not included into the new name, but think about it, if they did they would have called it Mechasystronic or Mechatronicsys; Too complicated for the Ageing professor in Uni to remember it hahh).

I mention ‘Different as it is, it is not new’. This seems puzzling but I’m going to explain to you about that.

Basically, we study the Controls of a Systems. It might be the control system in a car, plant or anything. A simple working air conditioner is called a System and the process of maintaining the temperature of the airflow at a specific degree Celsius is called the Control.

NOPE we don’t create Screws or Nuts. Those are the jobs of the mechanical engineers. And NOPE we don’t create circuits or specify which capacitor to use for the circuits. That, I’m sorry to say, are the job of the electrical engineers. WE get the product of the mechanical engineers and electrical engineers and MERGE them together and…. Tadaa!! =) … created something useful. Like the ABS system in a car, the Controls in a Nuclear power plant, the flight control path in a missile and planes and many more.

And yes, WE DO COOL STUFF.

There’s a lot more things I could talk about but I think that’s enough for now.

I’ll end part 1 for now.

To be continued…

{brunei postgraduate symposium 2010}

Hi everyone! It's been a while since anyone last posted anything on the blog...

I'd like to share my experience attending the Brunei Postgraduate Symposium, held last Saturday at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, University of London. In short, it was really good and worth going to!

This was the 2nd time the symposium has been held, with the inaugural event being last year. There were 3 keynote speakers, namely:

1) Hj Rozan DP Hj Md Yunos, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Development,

2) Dr Hj Omar Hj Khalid, Vice-Chancellor, ITB; and

3) Prof Tong Chee Kiong, Special Academic Advisor, ITB.

There were two panels, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, namely: the National Identity and Education Panel, as well as the Environmental, Health and Law Panel. In each panel there were about half a dozen speakers, Bruneians, coming not only from the UK but as far as Brunei and Australia. They each presented a paper detailing their research and postgraduate study. It was interesting, not only to see and hear about their work, but also how their work will relate to the development and benefit of Brunei in the future.

Also of particular interest were the three keynote speakers. They each gave a talk revolving around the theme of the symposium: "Sustainability & Growth: Securing our nation's future". I was especially intrigued by Prof Tong, who detailed the current new vision for UBD as a university not only focused on the educational needs of the Bruneian population, but also as a university known for its cutting-edge research, insyaAllah.

The day was quite an exhausting one as one had to concentrate for pretty much the whole time from morning listening to people speak, but it was definitely a rewarding one. I hope to be there again next year!

Ayyub

President

Good times..

Playing truth or dare when were on our way to BSB.

Nyaman ketawa si hadi..kurang ajher

hohoho

If Everyone Care

I found this video in YouTube, I think some of you know about it. I guess it's worth putting into this blog, I hope you people understand that the message that this song is trying to deliver.

I'm on leave

Sorry for not coming to you on time; I'm nearly a month late. I've got my driving licence, and everything seems to be fine. There isn't much to say, as I have been very seclusive and secretive. I'm in this phase where I'm leaving stuff behind and going on to a new phase of life (Think about leaving schooling life!). Things now seem different. They're very unpredictable, the things that are going to happen in the near future. Certainly it has got something to do with my attitude at facing things. I barely pay attention to stuff nowadays as sometimes I think that there is nothing better to do than being ignorant. But I'll recharge later. I think I deserve the break. I'll come back to some serious stuff in late January so I was thinking of how freely I could do things in this period of time. And maybe it is on this basis that today's me is being shaped. But as I said earlier, I will re-mould myself into normal shape as soon as the important stuff come back again.

Nothing to say about Brunei. It's been raining. Lots of it. Well I have to say something about Brunei, specifically Belait. Have you heard about the 2000 terraced houses scheme in the Mumong/Panaga boundary area? Seems like there is progress. A few observances I have noted are that the walls aren't made of bricks, rather from cement. I suppose they have this cement mould or something of that sort, maybe a template, that you fix onto the land or foundation of the house and you start filling it with that liquid concrete and wait till it dries. Or maybe they use concrete slabs and blocks and cement them together. Or any other method that is cheap and maybe cost-effective that produces a result of certain quality, that stuff. The second thing that I have noted is that the beams don't look thick. They have a sample display house though and it looks modern (though cheap). But we will never know how things will turn out when the houses reach 5 years old. You might well know about houses that look top-notch (whatever the idiom is) initially but then gets damaged due to the weather and gets all sorts of problems within a few years. So we'll see what will happen.

Just to notify, I am on leave. Will be back in February. Do not hesitate to read the Brunei Times on their website when I'm away. Or when I am not away. Or both.

Cheers

Office Boy

De-Synthesize

Reality-Check:

Courseworks

1)CAD Solidworks due this friday-Attempted

2)Statistics assignment due end of this week-Not started

Tutorial Sheets

1)SLAG-completed up to Sheet 4 of 8

2)Mechanics-on sheet 4 of 6

3)Maths-not a single one completed and stuck but all attempted, 8 sheets

4)Java Programming-Programming test next week worth 30% and the last 5 of 8 programming session kapai2...

and guess wat?? I DON GIVE A DAMN!!!

Been wondering knpa aku cmani.. I guess Im "DESYNTHESIZE"... One of the conditions I experienced when preparing myself for "A-levels".. and the cure is to do something I Suka buat but lama sudah nda buat....

But it's not working, and I found the cause. It's because IM IN A COMFORTABLE AND SWEET condition. Last weekend was awesome, It was the only weekend where i did not have to do any productive uni work after the previous hectic 4 weeks. So what to do?

GET OUT OF THE COMFORT ZONE!!!

It's blinding me, It's comfortable but in the long run it's not worth it.......

TIME TO LEAP OUTSIDE and DO THINGS which made me here,

COMPLETE THE ABOVE!!!!

dat's why Im here..

dat's why I was sponsored by BSP,

dat's why I aim high in my studies,

dat's why I am ESCAROGONIAN........

WE WORK TO BE THE BEST IN OURSELF!!!

No Pain No Gain

It's been a while, been VERY BUSY for the past two weeks.. TOO MUCH assignments,,

To me the past two weeks has been a test and I've learn two things:

1)LAST MINUTE IS A POWERFUL DRIVE, but it is JUST NOT WORTH IT!!! U'll eventually hand-in something but mcam stakat ada sja.. There's no Satisfaction knowing that the assignment could be MUCH MUCH MUCH MORE better...

2)no PAIN, no GAIN..

One of the assignment I have to hand is an individual marketing project on a sprint car that me and two other mates built..

The following is our story( the essay I have to Hand-in):

No Pain, No Gain

The phrase “No Pain, No Gain”, its one of the common sayings we can see around us. I question however, on how many have understood and how significant is that saying on one’s life. The entry that is submitted reflects upon the saying. It is a poster to promote the premiere opening of a new blockbuster hit. The centre of the poster shines “Bravo one”, a sprint car designed and built by 3 young aspiring engineers to be competed into a race of the fastest. It is supposedly produced by The Godfather Entertainment Co., filmed at the University Of Sheffield, reviewed by leading critics of the entertainment industry and is based upon a true story.

I had initially decided to create a short 10 minute video depicting the process of building Bravo One. More of a documentary covering the technical aspect and drama present in building the model in a entertaining manner, something close to MTV’s “Pimp My Ride”. However a lot of manpower is required to create such video. Though all of the guys in team 13 likes the concept of the idea, the project remains an idividual project and must be done by one man. Thus I’ve decided to submit another important aspect of a movie: the premiere poster advert to represent the promotional piece of Bravo One.

There are two criteria that must be met in creating this promotional piece; creativity and effectiveness. I am sure that this piece(a promotional poster intended for the movie of the sprint car) is different from a typical poster advert that is intended for magazines or newspaper; a leading point on creativity. However, the effectiveness of this promotional piece remains to be questioned. Suppose a toy car like Bravo One is on sale , I doubt that a company would create a movie to reach its initial sales target upon release. It is financially challenging. However after few months being in the market, I believe that a a documentary or movie might boost up the sales of the specific toy car. The public especially fans of the stars in the movie might be prompted to purchase such vehicle though they have no professional intend to race such sprint car in a competition. Furthermore such form of promotional piece literally targets everyone. Therefore this form of promotion might somehow be effective.

What I would remember most is not the success in building it but rather the frustation felt everytime our model breaks and doesnt move so as the hardship faced everytime the model has to be re-design. Though we could not meet the final distance required, victory was sweet as a custard strawberry pie when it finally accelerates. It is quite a known fact that the light bulb was finally created after 2000 failures. The expereince in building Bravo One made me appreciate that fact. Something to be remembered upon embarking my professional career as an engineer; “No Pain, No Gain”.

P.s: Thanx to Adri for showing me the magic a photoshop can do

P.s.s: IDK why the 1st part is underlines...