Day 1 Reflections

1. Key Learning Points From Each Session

1. Plenary session by Professor Kerry Sieh

Singapore, Malaysia and Sumatra are located on the Eurasian(Sudan) plate. The Indo-Australian beside it when collides with one another, subduct into the magma and thus melts. This caused a small piece of land on the Sudan plate to melts and form volcanic chamber. Mega thrust is caused when the Indo-Australian plate and Sunda plate are locked together. This will cause island to sink and when the bend is release, the force will be released as seismic waves causing a tsunami to occur. Nias island is one of the example and it sinks 2.5 metre after an earthquake occurs in the area.

1. IT for Animation by Professor Seah Hock Soon

There are three types of animation, Stop Motion, 2D Animation and 3D Animation. Stop motion is achieve when there’s an optical illusion caused when 2 or more still images of continuous movement are placed together. 2D animation are formed by drawing the characters and then moving the different limbs to achieve different actions. 3D animation is  almost the same as 2D animation, however the character or object is not flat but a solid one. The steps to doing an animation is first having a script which means we need to first create a storyline then proceed on to drawing a storyboard so that we know which scenes come first. After that we will have to design the characters that are involved in the animation then proceed on to the sound. Step 5 will be keyframe drawing then in between frame drawing. Then we proceed onto colouring, composition and shooting and finally we have our final product which is ready to be distributed. 

After that we learn about mathematics in movie. Geometry like points lines and Linear Algebra which involves vector spaces, rotating and moving shapes. This are all key things in to how we shoot a movie. Special effects that are shown in most action-packed movies also involved math calculation. Calculus helps to light up a scene. Laws of physics are use to create and calculate the dynamics of fire, water and fabric movement. I also learnt that lighting that are use to light up the scenes actually involve formula. To achieve different appearance of the objects, there are different lighting and each lighting actually involve a different formula.

1. Innovative breakthroughs in Nano-Science and Nano-Technology by Professor Ma Jun

Professor Ma Jun first tell us about Nano-Technology by telling us examples of how Nano-Technology affects or help us in our life example by using nano-technology we can kill bacteria, Nano cell treatment for freckles, body fresh card to let our body smells good and not sweaty and getting more prawn by using nanotechnology to achieve cleaner water. Professor Ma Jun also have colleagues who found out that chemical in cosmetic may actually cause cancer. Then he proceed to telling us what is Nano technology all about. Nano technology is actually to minimise the size of object and the design, fabrication and application of nano-materials. In summary it is to actually shrink everything possible. Some example is to use Quantum Dots to shrink information in the library congress into something at a size of an ice cube. Also being able to shrink into smaller people and then detecting cancerous tumors when they are only a few cells in size. Nano-Technology also affects the wavelength and thus allow objects to appear in different colours. Nano-technology helps aircraft to be heat resistant and thus allowing it to travel faster without burning. Corning using Nano-technology helps the opaque pot to become glass ceramics.

1. New Questions...

New questions I have about the topic are how did the professors find out that corals can actually tell us about the earthquake and tsunamis. How did the sailor moon animation work example does the animation actually requires change of character for each action and if it does, won’t it be a waste of resources. Lastly, how does Nano-Technology help in solving problem of the food shortage or competing demands of food.