Perpetual Motion
NEWSLETTER
Semester 1 2015/16
Freshmen Welcome Day :
MAE Club Exclusive T-Shirt: Gotta Have It!
PokĂŠmon Adventure
EVents:
Laser-Tag Your Friends
Nanyang Venture: 3D-Printed Car
How Well Do You Know MAE?
WIn $50 Voucher
ED’s Note
Vianney Renata Andramica Priastyo Hanna Maria Theodora
Perpetual Motion Newsletter is BACK!
P
erpetual Motion (PM) is a biannual publications of MAE Club, providing you the most recent news throughout the whole semester. This edition of Perpetual Motion will deliver you the remarkable experience of MAE Club’s Events of semester 1 AY 15/16 including the first ever MAE Lasertag, Exam Welfare Giveaway, Freshmen Welcome Day, Investiture and Subcommittee Bonding Session. Besides, PM will also provide you further knowledge about Nanyang Venture’s 3D Printing Car Project! We hope that PM can provide you with more and more updates each semester. We welcome your feedback or suggestion through publications@ maeclub.com Publicity and Publication Officers
contents 2 Editors’ Note 4 President’s Message
6 Freshmen Welcome Day 8 Investiture 2015 10
Subcommittee Bonding Session 2015
12
MAE Laser-Tag-Your Friend PERPETUAL MOTION Director: Andramica Priastyo Hanna Maria Theodora Vianney Renata Publisher: NTU School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Editorial: Adi Hartanto Andramica Brigitta Rachel Christian Chandra Hanna Maria Jun Xiong Mithal Abeer Pius Lim Vianney Renata Yohanes Nico Design: Hanna Maria Theodora, Adi Hartanto & Andra Website: www.maeclub.com
14 Exam Welfare Giveaway 16 3D-Printed Car
18 Quiz
19
Exam Tips by Dean’s Lister
20
MAE Club Exclusive T-Shirt
22 Students Voice Sponsors:
PRESIDENT's MESSAGe
LOW CHOON CHYE
Dear fellow MAE students,
Club (GSC) in events like MAE Graduation Night, Chinese New Year Dinner I am Choon Chye, the President of and Project Gratitude etc. the 34th Management committee of Our club’s vision, “MAE WITHOUT MAE Club. I would like to thank the STRANGERS” is something close to our 33rd Management Committee for their hearts. This is also the motto of our efforts and contributions for moving “Freshmen Welcome Day”, the first MAE a step closer to it’s vision: MAE event for incoming MAE students. It is WITHOUT STRANGERS. a freshmen orientation programme to The mission of the club is Outreach, welcome all our freshmen onboard to Vibrancy, Continuity. The 34th ManMAE. We feel that FWD is one of the agement Committee will work on this key events for MAE as it portrays the mission in terms of our operations. image of MAE Club to the freshmen. Outreaching our events to every MAE- For the next FWD, more will be emians, making our events more fun and phasize on the need to make this event vibrant and last but not least ensurmore fun and enjoyable for our incoming continuity in our participation for ing undergraduates. We will work on events. However, continuity is not just the concept of the programme and in the aspects of events’ participation, fine tune our objectives to have a howe should also focus on continuity of listic experience for the freshmen. our leadership for subsequent batches For our current MAE events, we will of MAE Club leaders. I stress the imalso look into collaborations with othportance of grooming and nurturing er schools to bring in more vibes and new individuals to take up leadership fun to our events. We will also focus positions in order to ensure continuity on getting feedbacks from the ground. in MAE Club. More surveys and feedback forms will For this year, publicity, publications be disseminated to garner feedbacks and MIT have officially merged to and opinions from the students. Do a PNP portfolio. This rebranding alnot hesitate to drop me an email at lows the club to standardize and the president@maeclub.com or feedbranding will be towards a common back@maeclub.com direction. We will be able to promote the common name and branding of LETS ALL DO OUR PART TO MOVE MAE MAE Club. The club has also decided TOWARDS OUR VISION: MAE WITHto head MAE graduation night under OUT STRANGERS. events as we believe that key events that are for MAE students should fall Thank you, under the responsibilities of MAE Club. Choon Chye Our events team will do their best to make it a memorable graduation night for our graduating students. For this year, MAE Club is also collaborating with Leadership Development Programme (LDP) and Graduate Student
Freshmen welcome day Freshmen Welcome Day (FWD) was an initiative that started in 2014 and its success encouraged its continuity this year. What sets this year’s FWD apart from the previous was that it was extended from a 1-day welcoming event into a 3 days non-residential orientation camp packed with all the fun and excitement of entering NTU. FWD serves as a platform to allow the freshmen to get to know one another and forge close knit relationships with their fellow coursemates. It also allows them to familiarize themselves with the school facilities while gaining a deeper understanding about university life from the experiences of the seniors. Through FWD, we aim to foster a school identity where every MAE student feels a strong sense of belonging towards the school at the same time, allowing us to
achieve our club’s mission - MAE without strangers. This year, the school of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering welcomed the incoming freshmen on 3rd August 2015. The theme of this year’s FWD was Pokémon - a familiar childhood memory for many. The freshmen were grouped into 6 different clans, namely: Darkrai (Dark), Moltres (Fire), Suicune (Water), Kyurem (Ice), Virizion (Grass) and Lugia (Psychic) which were further grouped into a total of 30 Orientation Groups (OG) named after different legendary Pokémons. The camp’s storyline was an adaptation of a typical Pokémon adventure, in which the freshmen were new trainers tasked to seek out Pokémons and catch them, simultaneously earning points for their OGs and clans through the many games organized by the Orientation Committee. The ultimate
PokÊmon master will then be picked based on their clan’s overall performance throughout the orientation camp. Day 1 started with a series of ice-breakers for the freshmen followed by an amazing that was held within NTU in which the freshmen were able to familiarize with the compound while having fun. A mass game was also held at the hockey pitch of the National Institute of Education (NIE), concluding the activities for Day 1. Day 2 included clan games, safari hunt and also the cheer fight, which was targeted to bond the freshmen on cohort level. Day 3 was the highlight of the camp, which was conducted at Sentosa. Here, freshmen battled through a series of tele-match and station games as an OG and ended with a mass game for the finale. Last but not least, FWD was then concluded with the prize-giving ceremony by Mr Foo ZhiSheng Alvin, the president of MAE Club. Clan Moltres (Fire) was declared as the best clan for FWD 2015! At the end of the camp, there were smiles of satisfaction from all freshmen despite of the exhaustion. We hope that everyone had as much fun as we did, and that the friendships built at FWD 2015 will remain strong and continue on even after the camp. FWD 2015 had been a great success, bringing much fun and laughter to the freshmen. However, all these would not have been possible without the dedication of Orientation Committee. We would like to thank everyone for their support in making FWD 2015 possible. Keep a look out for FWD 2016! It will be back with an awesome bang! Choy Wei Li (FWD 2015 HGS)
Investiture 2015 by Yohanes Nico
Wednesday, 23rd September 2015 was such an unforgettable day for some students who were recently elected as the 34th Management Committee of MAE Club. They were presented in front of MAE professors and students in LT 2A, Nanyang Technological University. It was also a memorable day for the 33rd Management Committee as they marked the end of their wonderful journey in serving the MAE community. Twenty one students in black formal attire sat in the middle front of the lecture theater. The light was dimmed followed by a video montage playing on the projector screen. It was an emotional and memorable video for the 33rd Management Committee from the first day
they stepped up until their last day of service. Laughters and smiles were on their faces as they were enjoying the journey back in time, presented in a mellow background music. “Happy to see young blood to serve MAE,” said Foo Zhisheng Alvin, former president of MAE Club, as he opened his speech. He thanked the 33rd Management Committee and the professors for their support and advice. He also gave some messages to the new management committee that a leader should be studentcentric and always listen to students’ voices in decision making. He ended his speech with a message to the new management committee, “You are the author to the new story of MAE.”
new president to give his first official speech. Applause grew louder as
“Lead the students to achieve great things.” -Prof Phee Soo Jay-
The event became more interesting as Prof. Phee Soo Jay opened his speech with his experience having dinner with Prime Minister and the first batch of MAE (formerly known as MPE) students to have graduated. He emphasised on the importance of having a balanced IQ (Intelligence Quotient) and EQ (Emotional Quotient). Therefore, students should not only be good at academics but also at managing emotional states to work better as a team. He also encouraged the new committee to do better than their predecessors. Finally,
the
time
has
come
for
the
Choon Chye made his steps ahead. “My mission are outreach, vibrancy and continuity”, he said. Those words echoed into the hearts of all audience. Parallel to what the former president, he also mentioned that listening to the voice of students is really important. He said that the previous committee has inspired and motivated him to do better. As a typical undergraduate, going for an exchange had been in his mind all this while, however after much contemplation, he has chosen to contribute to school instead of following his initial plan. Lastly, he closed his speech with a quote from the former president of the United States, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, and do more and become more, you are a leader.”
SUBCOMM BONDING SESSION by Brigitta Rachel
It was a morning sunny day on October 10th, 2015, but peculiarly, crowd had gathered in front of TCT LT, sat in a form of circle, some of them stood up and made funny gestures. What day was it and what were they doing? MAE Club Subcommittee Bonding Session (SBS) was happening! An event created from and for MAE Club subcommittee with its purpose to create a new and long-lasting friendship among them. This time, the subcommittees were divided into six clans: Frankenstein, Hydra, Ares, Newton, Liubei and Chang E; and each clan was led by a CGL. While waiting for the opening ceremony of SBS, each clan was playing their own ice-breaking games.
The opening was led by Kannan Azhagappa, MAE Club Orientation Officer, by delivering a warm welcoming speech, followed by Choon Chye, MAE Club President who gave a brief introduction about MAE Club and its vision. Not after too long, the first game started. It consisted of six station games. They said that the most interesting game was ‌., a mini relay race which consisted of four stages and each stage had different challenge. The first challenge was to bounce a ping-pong ball using hands, continued by capteh. The third one was to put in marbles into a glass. Sounds easy? Hmm, however, before that the player needed to turnaround making a circle a few times. The
game ended by throwing a few ping-pong balls into three baskets. The second game was a treasure hunt game, continued by skid performances of each clan. It was so fun, time passed by and ALAS! The first day ended in the evening. Had SBS ended? Sure not! It still had the second day of SBS. It was held at Sentosa Beach, started from morning till late-afternoon. They started the day with six station games, followed by the great finale, a four-stage relay race. It was full of fun and not forgetting the main element of beach game: water game! All in all, the SBS ended with a big smile on each face of the participants. It was an unforgettable 2-days event in their life.
MAE-Laser-tag Your-Friend by Yohanes Nico
MAE Laser-Tag-Your-Friend was a brand new event presented by MAE Club to help students relieving their stress before the exams. It was 1.15 pm, students entered and sat in groups in the Lee Kong Chian Lecture Theater. They were not there to attend a lecture or a blood donation drive, but to have fun in MAE Laser-Tag-YourFriends. Excitement appeared on their faces as they began to discuss their strategy for the main game of the event. Suddenly, the expression on their faces changed as a guy with “Billy the puppet”
or “Saw’s puppet” make-up appeared from the staircase. They just realized that it was October 30th, the day before Halloween. The eerie atmosphere did not scare or decrease their enthusiasm to play and enjoy the games. Besides the Laser-Tag, they were a lot of booth games available. Each group must play and win all the booth games in order to stand a chance to win a lucky draw at the end of the event. One of the booth games called “Lucky Please”, challenges how lucky your group is, by asking at least one person in a group to collect 4 same cards to win the round. In order to win the game the group has to win in 3 consecutive rounds. If the game master won before they could get 3 consecutive wins, the game must be restarted.Next to the “Lucky Please” game was a game called “Ping Pong Piang”. In this game, each person in the team will be asked to dribble a table tennis ball with a writing pad 3 times before he/she could pass the ball to the next person. The
group wins the game if they could do that without falling the ball onto the ground in 1 minute.“A+ Student” was another unique game. It is a game that tests your general knowledge about Halloween. The players will win the game if they could give 5 correct answers for the questions given by the game master within 30 seconds. If they fail, one person in group would be asked to take a sip of tabasco from the bottle. Besides testing your knowledge and luck, there was another game that would test your strategy and strength called “FlipIt-Right”. In this game, the group should flip the coin which was placed on a thick dictionary by tapping it without touching the coin. The only way to win this game is to flip the coin 5 consecutive times.Before
getting to our main games, there was another interesting game called “Archery Tag”. In this game, the group would try to play archery and hit at least 2 targets in order to win the game. After a long wait, the Laser-tag game commenced in LKC Function Room. In this one-on-one game, each group must defeat another group by shooting the sensors which was placed in front of their weapons. Each of the player has 4 lives, and if he/she were killed, the opponent will get a point. This game consists of 3 rounds and the maximum duration of each round is 10 minutes. At the end of the event, the overall winners of the games were announced.
MAE students queuin
Satisfied with the heavy and lovely welfare pack!
Sports committee scoutin
Exam Welfare Giveaway 2015
ng for the welfare pack
ng for potential ISG players
Free McChicken for every MAE students
Nanyang venture : 3D-printed Car Nanyang venture is a NTU students’ project which aims at tackling the problem diesel, petrol and other fossil fuel guzzling cars by designing a car that runs on solar energy. Nanyang Venture VIII is one the more recent models and was designed primarily by MAE students. Perpetual Motion caught up with two of them, Nicholas and Yi Xu to ask them some questions! Q. Tell us a little bit about Nanyang Venture. Nicholas: Nanyang Venture is a student-based project supervised by Assoc. Prof. Ng and we take part in the annual competition called Shell EcoMarathon. Every participating university sends a car to race according to the competition guidelines. There are different types of cars that are competed. For example, last year we sent two cars. The first car is in the prototype category, while the other (3d printed car) was under the urban concept category. The urban concept category also differs into many categories according to the field like battery, electric and gasoline. Nanyang Venture VIII and IX both run on a battery.
Photo Š NTU,2015
Q. How do the latest models (VIII and IX), improve on previous models? Both: Actually it cannot be said that the latest model is an improvement on previous models as this is our first time we competed in the urban concept category. Urban concept category car needs to run on the road which is similar to a real car. For the prototyping category it is more about the efficiency of the shape of the car and the aerodynamics. The interesting thing about Nanyang Venture IX is the tilting mechanism which can turn corners like a motorbike. As for Nanyang Venture VIII, the body parts are mostly 3D printed which is a new concept. Q. What is the biggest challenge you faced while designing the car? Both: The design was done by our senior last year, so we just implemented the design to realization. And for the 3D printed parts, they were printed part by part because our 3d printer is not large so we cannot print it in one shot. We actually printed about 150 different parts and then combined it to form the body. There is actually a 3D printed car before us in which the body parts were printed as a whole. The 3D printed parts also were not strong enough so we used carbon steel to make the chest. We are still trying to experiment on how to use
3D printed parts on other parts of the car. We also used 3D printed gears on the car itself. Around 50% of all the parts were 3D printed which is a big percentage. Q. According to you which are your greatest innovations in this project? Both: First one obviously was the 3D printed parts. And second was the torque vectoring. Torque vectoring is a way to adjust the speed of the left and right motors based on the steering wheel. When the car turns left, the left wheel and the right wheel should have different speeds. In order to achieve this, electrical components which used 2 wires to communicate with each other were used. This system is used in real cars and we also tried to implement certain security features because as long as you know the protocol you can plug in any car and modify the value accordingly. There is no security even in modern car. We also tried to change the parts into carbon fiber to reduce the weight of the car and also built the encoder by ourselves. We used infrared sensor to reflect the infrared light and received them by a transistor so each rotation would be recorded. Besides that we had a camera to monitor the live feed of the driver.
Q. To what extent did engineering fundamentals taught during lectures and tutorials help you in this project? Nicholas: For me, personally maybe what we learn is not sufficient yet. I did most of the learning by myself, since I have not taken any design course. I learnt how to design the parts, do 3d modelling, operate the 3d printer and wire the components all by myself. But I guess the lessons taught in class help you to understand the fundamental concepts. Yi Xu: For me, I am a Computer Science student and all the electrical components are hardware based in the car. So I needed to learn the hardware, like Arduino, by myself. Q. Do you think electric and solar car could replace conventional hydrocarbon powered cars in the near future? Nicholas: I think that for the time being it is not sufficient to just use solar power. Until technology advances further, this will not be possible. Nicolas and Yi Xu answered our questions on behalf of the entire Nanyang Venture team.
QUIZ 1) Who is the chair of the school of MAE? a) Ooi Kim Tiow b) Louis Phee c) Lam Yee Cheong d) Wong Chee How
middle. What is this object?
degrees does MAE offer?
a) Table b) Research Poster
a) 1
2) Which of the following professors’ main research interest is a Cyborg Beetle? a) Hirotaka Sato b) Christopher Shearwood c) Erdal Kayacan d)Tai Kang
7) MAE is located at block N3. How many sub blocks does N3 have? a) 0 b) 1 c) 2 d) 3
3) What is the postal code for MAE office? a) 637512 c) 639798 b) 637659 d) 639410 4) What does the A in MAE stand for? a) Aeronautical c) Avionics b) Aerospace d) Aviation 5) Which of these equipment does school of MAE not currently have? a) Nano Indentor b) Hybrid Rheometer c) Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope d) All of the above 6) When you enter the MAE undergraduate office, there is a large brown object kept in the
c) Trophy Cabinet d) Nanyang Venture
b)2
c) 3
d)4
12) Which of the following a course that both Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering students have to take? a) MA3006 b) MA3002
c) MH1810 d) MA2004
8) Which of these is a second year core subject for all MAE students?
13) Which of the following bodies are the degrees offered by MAE accredited to?
a) MA2005 b) MA2004
a) PES b) IES c) ASME d) IEEE
c) MA3010 d) MA3002
9) Which of these is not an MAE offered course? a) Operations Research b) Introduction to Electrical Circuits and Electronic Devices c) Analysis of Materials d) Microprocessor Systems 10) Who out of the following is not a professor in MAE? a) Ang Hock Eng b) Du Hejun c) Huang WeiMin d) Han Mao Kiah 11) How many undergraduate
14) How many adjunct faculty positions are currently occupied in MAE? a)5
b) 6
c) 7
d) 8
Email your answer to publications@maeclub. com by 4 December 2015. Include your full name, course and year of study, contact number in your entry. Multiple entries from one person will not be accepted. Winners will be picked from those with correct answer in a lucky draw.
Exam Tips by Mithal Abeer
Exam time is approaching and every single student is probably at this time rushing around getting last minute professor’s advice, doing past year papers and generally trying to get through the exams in one piece. This is the time when study rooms miraculously seem fuller and SRC gets a little bit emptier. ‘Relaxing’, ‘hanging out’ and ‘enjoying life’ cease to be part of our vocabulary and are replaced with scarier terms like ‘partial differential equations’, ‘thermodynamics’ and ‘stress transformation’. To make this extremely stressful time a little bit easier for everyone we have come up with some tips on how to deal with the exams a little better. 1. Eat and sleep well: Yes we know that exams are around the corner but you still need to eat and sleep. Sitting for three hours studying is going to be pretty pointless if the entire time you’re thinking about food, or if you’re half asleep. Rather than this it is better to be well fed and well rested while studying. Try to plan your day well and slot in ample time for daily necessities
during exam time. Everyone needs at least small doses of ‘fun’ activities to refresh themselves and ensure they do not get bogged down by the huge mountain of work in front of them. Don’t stop living for something so fleeting like exams. 3. Focus on studying rather than scoring: There’s no doubt that everyone wants to do well in exams, however many people fall into the trap of making results their priority. They start focussing on their final grade and how they can get there to such an extent that they compromise on time they could have spent actually studying. Time which could have been used to better understand the course materials is now spent obsessing over the final grade.
4. Find what works for you: Everyone is unique and therefore everyones studying pattern is unique. Some people study best alone whilst others study better in groups. Some people study better in areas of pin drop silence whilst others study better with loud music. The point is thatthere is no one size fits all formula. There is no point imitating others’ study habits just because you think they get good results. Know what 2. Don’t give up on life: With so many lectures for so many modules left to complete it works best for you and be confident. is easy to see why so many students give up on all their hobbies and ‘relaxing endeavours’
MAE CLUB EXCLUSIVE T-SHIRT
GOTTA HAVE IT!
The MAE Club, exclusive T shirts are now out, and everyone is trying to get their hands on one. Not surprising considering the combination of sleek design and loyalty to MAE that they represent.
The T shirts also have a gear, a wrench and jack, carved into the gold MAE lettering, which reminds onlookers that this T shirt represents the school of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
The T Shirts come in two separate coloursblack and white. Both colours have MAE emblazoned across the front in bold, giving the whole t shirt a regal look. Unlike previous years, the designers this year used a slightly more elaborate font, which adds to the overall character of the t shirt.
No matter what kind of dresser you are your wardrobe will definitely be better off with the MAE exclusive T Shirt. It can be worn for casual outings, semi-formal meetings (especially those related to MAE) and for general everyday wear. Order your size today!
Nicholette Ho says,...
“The MAE Exam welfare pack is very useful as it contains many snacks and food which can be an energy booster for me when I’m studying! Also, there are sufficient stationaries for me to use.”
So Jia Yi says,...
“I really enjoy the exam welfare pack. What’s inside doesn’t matter, it’s instead the care and concern culture that MAE students have for each other. Preparing for finals is no doubt a tough journey, but with the encouragement with course friends, it motivates you to keep going on.”
Albert Christian says,...
“The thing that I really love the most about MAE Club is the people. As an international student, it’s quite challenging to have interaction with either local or students from other nationalities. But when I joined the Subcomm Bonding Session, that fear just flew away since everybody was so welcoming.”
Jun Xiong says,...
“I think that the FWD was an enriching experience, allowing me to get to know my coursemates and seniors who are going to be with me for the next few years.”