Reflection on 25-7-2011

Debby Chau (4S)

Our last week in Imperial College started today. We met our new academic and pastoral mentors in the morning and we were all in different new mentor groups. I will be studying Haptics this week. We were introduced to the machine – THE NOVINT FALCON haptic device and learnt how to write Java programme.

Next in the evening, we played a team building game and through this we were more familiar with our new group mates. The aim of the game was to build the highest and most stable tower using spaghetti and jellybabies. As we had already played this game on the first week, we could use our past knowledge to assist our group. The mentors didn’t announce which group was the winner, but all of us enjoyed the game.

We are all looking forward to the rest of the week and hope we can meet more friends from different parts of the world. 

Maggie Yam (4S)

Today, we were all separated into different mentor groups since we have chosen different strands of subjects this week.

I am studying engineering and it’s really enjoyable. I understand why engineers study energy and how engineering is applied to the use of energy. Energy is being used everywhere, and we do use a lot of it, such as the telephone charger we use every day, lighting of households, heaters we use in winters, etc. Energy is really very useful to humans, however, the supply of energy can’t satisfy its demand. Therefore, engineers have to think of ways to generate electricity for household, with care of different aspects, which are affordability, sustainability and security. They have to design machines to minimize the cost of production, think of ways which last long, for example the burning of coal, is not sustainable because it will be used up. Lastly, countries have to ensure that their supply is capable to satisfy its demand, so that they won’t spend lots of money on purchasing energy from other countries. Energy saving is not just the job of engineers, but also related to our daily lives, so we have to use energy efficiently, such as switching off the electrical appliances after use, and using energy-saving appliances, etc.

After the lesson, we made paper bridges together with our group members. Paper is soft as we known, so we have to think of ways to make it strong so as to hold heavy objects. It is a challenging task for us and we did enjoy the process, we also made new friends. What an enjoyable day!