This blog post, in part to commemorate the third week in China, shall be divided into three segments. Let’s start with our project. This week we had ideas presentation, where we talked about where the general direction as to how our project will progress, with some ideas on the areas of socialising and education. We also got to know more about the EM-sense technology in which most of our project will be based on. Essentially, many things in our daily lives produce electromagnetic waves, so if we can detect and process those signals, it opens many applications. Throughout the session, we considered what types of implementation would have the most impact on people, as well as its feasibility. We whittled around eleven ideas down to two: one to get to know more people, while the other to train people on how to operate certain machinery with the potential of cutting down on training costs. Moving on, we made a trip to the design town located about 30 minutes from the Zijingang campus where we were introduced to many items designed in China. Some of the things seen include a hoverboard, a sensor activated trash can and conduction speakers. I was pleasantly surprised to know that for a country accused of imitating successful products, there are many original designs that are not seen elsewhere and that it is a country that also prides itself in terms of innovation. There, one of our theme mates, Samson Choo, graciously accepted the role of human Google translator (albeit a much better iteration)! Finally, some updates on the origami robot. We got the opportunity to play with servos and with that, it allowed us to refine our designs better as we can see everything come together. As we progressed, we realised most of our designs become simpler and not complex and were a result of merely a few folds of paper, thus showing the enormous versatility that paper has. That is all for now, till a paradox happens… (This week’s blog post is contributed by one of our team member, Hoon Qi Tai)
