Blog 1
Week 1
During this week of ICPD, Dr. Noel assigned us into groups and I was assigned to group 5 (Panthers) alongside Weng Yan and Justin. After which, Dr. Noel allow us to roam free in order to learn more about our group mates so as to allow us to get along better with our group mates. During the time, at first, we had no idea what to do and walked around aimlessly while discussing what to do, in which we decided at last to just head to food court 1 to eat something light while trying to get to know each other better.
We have also divided our roles and responsibility along with ground rules of the group. The following is what our group have decided:
Tristan (Team leader)
1) organize meetings
2) keep everyone on track
Justin (Scribe)
1) Take down notes of what is being discussed in meetings to help the team stay on task
2) Create documents for the team to write down our results and findings
3) Organises the notes neatly for better visualisation
Weng Yan (Photographer)
1) take photos and selfies of group meetings
2) take photos of product/design every step of the way
Team Agreement:
1. Put 100% of your effort into this module
2. Be punctual for all group meetings
3. Help each other out when in need
4. Respect each other
5. Have fun in this module
Week 2
In this week of ICPD, I overslept due to working on an assignment the previous day, and got to class roughly an hour and 30 mins late.
When I arrive, we were taught on the 4 types of chemical products which are commodities, molecular products, micro-structured products and chemical devices.
From what I understand:
1. Commodities are made in large quantities
2. Molecular product are product with certain molecular structures
3. Micro-structured product are product that is of a size measure using the unit of micro
4. Chemical devices are devices that make use of miniature process
After which we are tasked to think of an existing product and classify it. My group chose a kettle and we classify it under commodities we taught since kettle is made in large quantity, it will be classify as a commodities, however, we soon realized that we were wrong, and that a kettle is actually a chemical device as a kettle uses a miniature process (heating) to accomplish a particular chemical transformation (cold water become hot)
I did my DCHE digital fabrication quiz and created my blog later that evening since I missed them out as I was late for lesson
Week 3
In this week of ICPD, we learnt about needs identification which is the first step of product design stages. Basically, we are supposed to try to think of certain needs a customer may have. This will allow us to create a product which will cater to the customers needs, and hence, the product will sell.
Dr. Noel then gave us time to think of our customer needs that we are going to solve. My group were not able to think of anything as many of our idea are simply not feasible and due to ask trying to look for idea on google, it hinder our brain from working to it fullest and stop us from coming up with new ideas, and changes to this idea I saw in the internet seems good. In the end, due to the lack of time and ideas, we ended up picking a needs that does not have any chemical engineering principle, but that is a story for blog 2... stay tune for the next episode only on blogger.com each sold separately
Practical 1
The first practical was a very meaningful practical in my opinion.
At first, i thought it was a redundant practical which I was quickly proven wrong. I thought it was redundant as in the first part of 3 activity, we are supposed to operate a coffee maker. which I thought " who does not know how to use a coffee maker, you just add water, and coffee powder in, and poof, you get coffee" however, making the coffee is not the main focus of the activity. the main focus would be to observe the coffee maker in order to understand how the coffee maker works. the one thing I learnt from this activity is to make coffee... and also to be observant and take note of anything that you feel might help you in the future, such as reading the question before conducting the experiment so you know what you need to record down before you even do the experiment.
In the 2nd part of the experiment, we dismantled the coffee maker in order to find the mechanism that allow it to function without breaking laws of physics. In this activity, I learnt that sometimes if an equipment does not do what you expect it to do, then perhaps its just broken, and you should accept it as being broken, instead of coming up with some conspiracy theory that the check valve is not a check valve but a device that can somehow solve the main problem we are pondering about, which is how the water defeated gravity at its very finest.
In the 3rd part of experiment, we finally understood that the water was able to surpass gravity as it is being lifted by something that surpass gravity, and that is none other than water.. in the gaseous state.
I believe I can say for everyone in my class, on that day, we grew a little more respect for coffee makers
