Reflection on 28-7-2011

Joey Chu (4S)

It has been another busy day today. Patsy, Katherine and I were further amending our robot so it could carry out its function in “Meltdown”, which is an in-class competition between mentor groups with the help of our mentor, Aimie. Our robot was to cooperate with the two other robots in the group so communication was really important. However, everyone else in our group were boys and were much more skilled than us in building robots. This had made it more difficult for us to join in group discussions as well as coordinating. Luckily, one of our group mates, Ping-Ko was really nice to have helped and led us throughout the preparation for the competition along with Aimie.

In the afternoon, we started to prepare for our presentations tomorrow. We chose to talk about medical robots in addition to introducing our own robot. After the training in the past three weeks, we are now much more skilled and familiar with project making. We quickly did an outline and allocated our work, then search for information online. Within two hours, we have finished our PowerPoint as well as our script! All that was left behind was to practice our script several times and we hope we will do well tomorrow.

We had the STEM world 2011 cabaret at night. Our group was the last to go on stage so we were really nervous all the way when other performances were up. Actually, we considered our performance as the “most embarrassing 11 minutes” ever at first. We would not expect ourselves to be singing Do-Re-Mi and Spongebob Squarepants as well as the translated English version of Guangliang’s “Fairytale” at the age of 16/17. Our mentor, Leonard even dressed up as a woman and pretended to be Maria in the Sound of Music! Luckily, response from audience was quite good and they even sang along. Perhaps we would consider this a really special experience, and a good show!

Patsy Lau (4S)

During today’s lesson, we continued to build a robot to perform the melt down task. In this task, our robot must try to collect as much glow stick as possible within the time limit. As all three of us have not tried to build robots before, we found this task really tough and we needed a lot of help from our mentor. Luckily, our mentor was really kind and helped us a lot in building the robot, so the robot can be built successfully. We have learnt a lot while building the robot. We have learnt to be precise because when one screw is in wrong position the robot may not function properly. Moreover, we have learnt to be persistent and not to give up easily. If we give up easily when a mistake was made, we will never be able to finish the robot.

At night, we had a talent show. Although all the participants only have a few nights to rehearse, the performances are really interesting and wonderful. All of us enjoyed ourselves.

The four weeks trip almost comes to an end. This is a precious experience and I am sure that I will remember this forever!

Reflection on 27-7-2011

Ingrid Lai (4U)

We continued building our car this morning in the Engineering lesson. Cynthia, Seb and I worked as a team. We modified the design of the car since it could not run smoothly. We added some weight to our rear wheels by adding two more wheels on each side. During the process of making our car, we showed our team spirit by specialising the tasks. Seb worked with the rubber band and powered the car; Cynthia dealed with the decoration part; and I was responsible for testing the speed of the car. Finally, we had done it! We made a ‘Pepsi Car’ since the front part of the car was coloured with red and blue. We were all very glad to see our car racing successfully.

After lunch, we visited the Department of Materials. We saw various technological equipments. There was a large water tank testing the patterns of waves which impressed me a lot. We also saw some experiments involving how the properties of materials changes with alteration in temperature. The tour gave me an insight of what studying Engineering was all about in a university. I definitely enjoyed it so much.

reflection on 26-7-2011

Yammie Lam (4S)

Today we had our engineering lessons again. We were told to make a car that is powered by rubber bands and made of wood. We were designing for the whole morning from sketch and started to make it by cutting and drilling all by ourselves. It was the very first experience of us to use these equipments so it was really fantastic. After the lessons, we went to watch Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. We had been looking forward to watching it since we came here one month ago. We were very excited while we are walking to the cinema. It was really awesome and thrilling. As there was no subtitle, we could focus more on the story and the actors more than when we were in Hong Kong. But still I think I will watch it again after I get back to Hong Kong. It was such a memorable night.

Cynthia Wong (4S)

I am studying Engineering this week. I have learnt more about Engineering, for example, there are about 80 kinds of Engineering in the world and it involves everything.

Yesterday we learned how to build a paper bridge in a most efficient way and today we have learned how to build our own car using different kinds of materials. In the morning, we were demonstrated a model car designed by the professor, then we had to think about the design of our own car and what materials we needed. It took us a long time to design a car that has the least fiction and can travel the longest distance. Although my drawing was not good, it was fun to design our own car.

After we did the paper work on designing, we had to do our design on the computer, using a software called ‘solid work’, which was specialized for engineering and building stuff. We had to divide our draft into different parts and make it in the computer, which is called ‘CAD design’. The software is so complicated that we spent a lot of time on knowing how to use it. But I have gained an experience on what actually engineer is doing every day.

Although our car was not finished, we were looking forward to seeing it. In the process of constructing the car, we had to cut the wood using the machine that an engineer uses, this gave us a chance to experience how Engineering works and let us think about whether we should choose studying Engineering or not.

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!

Reflection on 24-7-2011

Joey Chu (4S)

                

We had a picnic in the Hyde Park today where we had our lunch and enjoyed ourselves playing sports the whole afternoon. We felt so relaxed being with our friends chilling out after a busy academic week. Also, I found this picnic an opportunity for me to do some sports games which I don’t usually get the chance to do in Hong Kong. I liked sitting on a large field of grass, which was really beautiful and I used to see it only in movies. There were different sports equipments provided and I chose to play volleyball with my friends. It reminded me of the times I had with my friends in the volleyball team at school.

When we were tired, we sat on the grass and chatted. We also sang and lay on the grass, enjoying the mild breeze and sunshine. I used to be really afraid of all insects, but when we were in another country following others’ cultures, I just didn’t find these insects really matter.

We will be starting another academic week tomorrow, the picnic we had today has really gave us the chance to refresh ourselves and prepare for the busy week coming. I don’t think I will be having a similar chance to relax myself when I get back to Hong Kong, I have really had a good time and will never forget this picnic we had today.

Patsy Lau (4S)

Today is Sunday, we didn’t have any lesson and went for picnic in Hyde Park. After chilling out a bit in the Queen’s lawn, we walked to the park. Today was a sunny day and it was quite enjoyable to sit on the lawn and have lunch with our friends. Although we have already been there for picnic two weeks ago, I still find this trip fun and interesting as we could have a chance to chat and play with our new friends. After having a sandwich, we started to play different sports games with our mentors, such as volleyball and football. After having some exercise, we played card games and lay on the grass to have a rest. We taught our mentor to play card games that people in UK didn’t know and he also told us more about the UK culture. I think that was a great opportunity for us to learn more about the foreign culture and I really treasure these experiences. Then, we chatted and sang some songs together and all of us enjoyed ourselves so much.

I think today’s experience was quite special as we don’t have many parks in Hong Kong where we can sit for a whole day to relax ourselves. This picnic also allowed us to know more about the living style of the British. People in Hong Kong usually go for shopping during weekends but people here love to go to parks and relax themselves with their families. This is quite different from Hong Kong. I think that having a picnic is really great and enjoyable. Hope that I still have a chance to go for picnic when I get back to Hong Kong!

Reflection on 23-7-2011

Katherine Lam (4A)

Today is Saturday and we did not have lessons. In the morning, we just chilled out in the Queen’s Lawn. After the mentors distributed our lunch at about 12, we set off for our off-campus activities.

We travelled to the London Eye by tube and had our lunch on the lawn beside it. Then we went to the London Aquarium. The aquarium was divided into several parts, such as animals in rainforest and animals in South Pole. We saw many kinds of marine creatures, some of which were rarely seen, such as sharks and penguins. The experience of seeing them was fantastic. It was so interesting to see the different structures and outlooks of the marine creatures and to understand the facts about their lives.

  

After going to the aquarium, we went to Harrods, where we met up with our school teacher for our evening activity. We watched the famous musical, Phantom of the Opera, in Her Majesty Theatre. We have heard about the musicals in theatres in London and have always wanted to watch them so we were very excited to have this chance. The actors and actresses sang very well and the musical was wonderful. We liked it so much that we could not stop singing the songs in the musical after watching it.

  

Today was really a happy day. Going to the London Aquarium and seeing the musical was definitely an unforgettable experience.

Ingrid Lai (4U)

It was time to ‘chill out’ after a week of hard work in forensic science. In the morning, we relaxed a bit at Queen’s Lawn. We chatted and played joyfully.

At noon, we took the Underground to Embankment station and went to the lawn beside the London Eye. We had a quick lunch there, then we went to the Aquarium just next to it. We were all very excited because we were going to see many different kinds of sea lives! We stayed there for three hours. In my opinion, I think the aquarium in Ocean Park in Hong Kong is better than that in London. The fish there in Ocean Park are more eye-catching and there are also more types of marine animals, such as seals and jellyfish. However, I still found the penguins in the Aquarium very cute when they were walking.

In the evening, we left the STEM World team and went to Piccadilly Circus with our school teacher. We had a lovely dinner- Korean cuisine. I had a stone pot of rice with beef. It was the most delicious and hottest food I had ever eaten since I was here in London!

Our excitement lifted to its climax when we went to Her Majesty’s Theatre and watched one of the most famous musicals in the world- ‘The Phantom of the Opera’. The performers were all very professional- from their singing skills to their facial expressions; and from their expressions in their voices to their involvement in the performance. I really enjoyed the night very much. This was the second time for me to see a musical in London. After tonight, I have become more interested in musicals and I hope I could have more chances of seeing more in the future!