Abdolraouf Rahmani KIE170720 Journal Entry


13.3.2019: Presentation Day

Our group's presentation slot was on 15:00 at the block Y student clinic with Dr Chua. On my way to venue I was worried that I may not make it in time for the proposal presentation, and it was specially important to me to attend as I had no idea what my group was doing, as I didn't meet them before that. I get to the venue about 5 minutes late, but it seemed my group hadn't presented yet-that was a blessing. Student clinic was brimming with students, and there were two lecturers facing the projector screen towards the other end, evaluating another group's proposal. It was a shock to me that almost all the students that were suppose to be only observing, were speaking, and they were speaking quite loudly that it was necessary for one to focus hard on the presenter to understand them. I waited for about 7 minutes ,and it still wasn't our group's turn to present. I left the room then. I think it was for two reasons that I left, firstly the fact that everyone was conversing with each other and I was there just sitting-couldn't even listen to the presenter- which made me feel really out of place which is mainly because I was doing a course without any close friends or any batchmate, secondly it was embarrassing for me to stay in a crowd that was making noise while people were presenting. After leaving the venue I waited on G floor for my groupmates to pass by so I could get a bit of information out of them. After a while one of my groupmates came out the lift, I went up to him and asked him "So what's going on?" , he responded something along " it went good...…" which didn't tell me anything about what our group's activity is. I was about to rephrase my question, but then I realized that he was with his friends and they were going somewhere but I stopped them...……. so decide to just node and let them go.
Later that day I asked my groupmate for social activity details.
Our group chose to be part of BEGINE CHALLENGE. Begin challenge is a interschool competition between Malaysian high schools for creation of most innovative product. Our group had to mentor Tropicana SMK students with their Smart Fencing product. In addition to that we had to help out Begin challenge here and there.

Tropicana SMK wanted to create a smart fence that would sense animals and in response it would scare them away using noise or light. No one in our group was properly equipped to mentor these students as we didn't have experience with IoT things or Arduino and automation. We conducted workshops for 3/4 and 10/4 to help them out as much as we could. In addition to us we requested a Dr and a PG student to help. Below shows a group photo of two of our members with Tropicana team.



The lessons that could be learned:
  • Malaysians are not very punctual-if they feel it's something casual. it's a stereotype but still true for majority of cases.
  • Be more punctual-no stress or worry if you manage your time and be punctual.
  • Don't let your feelings affect your actions, compare the pros and cons to your actions to make proper decisions.
  • Let people decide if they have time for you-they are responsible for their time, and you are to yours.

20.3.2019 - Lab tour

I was given the responsibility of guiding the attendees through one of the labs-Advanced cutting lab. The session starts at afternoon and each lab including mine was suppose to have been visited by 10 groups or so. I waited for 15 minutes for the first group to show-up. The next group doesn't show up for another 30 minutes. In total only 3 groups show-up for my lab. Apparently the lab tours were conducted so bad that a Dr responsible for a lab meets the head of BEGIN to complain.





3/4/2019: First workshop day

Few members of our group and Dr Chua went to Tropicana SMK for our first workshop. In this workshop we helped the Tropicana team with their Arduino coding and their pitching skills. Dr Chua was there to also help with the circuit. I personally wasn't present as I had to attend a seminar for my APK (Basic entrepreneurship) course.

10/4/2019: Second workshop day
We went to the school around 1:30 with our personal vehicles. To help the students with Arduino programing further a PG student was invited to help them out. He seemed to help Tropicana team progress immensely. I personally felt useless in that session. I tried my best to pay attention to everything the PG student had said so that I would provide my perspective to the table-but I couldn't provide anything of use. One of the high school students was keeping up with the PG student's instruction so well that I was amazed. Then I learned humility and respect for someone younger, less experienced that myself. I also learned it's best to focus on understating the situation fully and only then am I allowed to attempt to help-as help with lack of knowledge would just hinder the whole process.

24.4.2019: Begin Challenge 

This is the day all the products from different schools get assessed by lecturers from different department of Engineering Faculty. We visited the Tropicana booth to check on them. Beside minor troubles and trouble shooting everything was fine-but the students were nervous nevertheless. I saw many different products presented by different schools, but non seem to be fully functioning-they were merely as husk prototype. After assessment by the lecturers the results came out and Tropicana received second place. They achieved a rank worthy of their dedication and hard work.




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