Lab@Home Update: Pneumatic Airgun

Posted by HELiX

I started on the project today, but before I go into further details, I should acknowledge my Dad’s effort for helping me look for the materials and paying the full costs, and also for helping me do the sawing ‘cos I was too lazy. More importantly, this project follows the wonderful guide written by home laboratory extraordinaire Gao Guangyan. All credits of the details and planning goes to him.

Well so anyways, the construction of the airgun has begun. The main material chosen is pressure rated PVC piping. As of now, I’ve acquired most of the materials already.

The design is fairly simple. This image shows the materials in place but they are not yet joined, so I left a small gap in between them.

The larger 2″ PVC tube at the bottom stores the compressed air, and the valve is closed. When the valve opens, the compressed air is released through the smaller 1″ PVC tube and pushes the projectile out.

I started gluing everything together today…

Gotta leave them to dry for 24 hours, and I still require more materials… Hmm…

Comments(0) 11:49 PM 1 January 2007

Back to BP #3

Posted by HELiX

CCA orientation went alright, and I tried getting high with all the shoutings and stuffs but my voice hasn’t recovered yet.

Ya anyways, we’ve (as in, me and Rong’en) gotten the desired team for the National Science Challenge approved! Mr Mathew Lim usually organises everything and select the members, but after an embarrassing loss on national TV last year, me and Rong’en decided that it was time to step in and win the most prestigious science competition out there.

Mr Lim has, in fact, already selected and asked a few sec 3s to join the competition, but that’s not what me and Rong’en wanted because we wanted to train them and it’s much better off if we could choose the members.

Don’t laugh, this is our requested team:

Edrei (Has a problem of being too smart)
Weili (I can’t separate these two, somehow)
Nicholas
Parth (Science Quiz… and they’ve got the passion)
Weide (O Level Bio at sec 1? o___o)

Yes, we’re sending a team of two weird sec 3s and three sec 2s against brand name schools with teams consisting of five top science sec 3 students.

But considering how the astro team of 2004 at NUS-NTU, consisting of three sec 2s and one sec 3s, pwn the other schools big time, I guess we can give it a shot.

I promised Mr Lim a spot in the Grand Finals. Grr…

Ya so, I’m coming back, twice a week, every week, to train them. For free. In my own free time. I’m willing to make a big sacrifice, but I just hope the team will do so too…

Comments(0) 8:34 PM 1 January 2007

Lab@Home

Posted by HELiX

A little preview into my next Laboratory@Home project…

Comments(0) 12:55 AM 1 January 2007

Back to BP #2

Posted by HELiX

Today, me and Dongwei met up to visit BP again… And it was very much essential.

WHY ARE Y’ALL SCREWING SCIENCE TEAM UP?

Ok, I’m not trying to be rude, because Sujay, Ting Shien and all have put in considerable amount of effort into organising stuffs around since they took over. Really difficult for them, as they took over only in November.

A fact me and Rong’en both agreed on, is that generally, a head will take the first 6 months (ie. June-Dec) to learn to become a, um, good head, so those 6 months are really crappy times for the team. It isn’t being noticed so much because the members would be studying for their EOY exams and stuffs. But really, once the new year begins with the competitions, it seems like everything becomes clearer and more active. Also the reason why I decided to mix with y’all juniors sometime into last year… Sorry y’all! >.<

But please, at the rate stuffs are being organised, our Science niche status might very well be gone. Once I entered a different school (ie. JC) with a different niche, I really started appreciating BP’s science niche status. Schools with niche in sports allow the sports CCAs to select members first, and dump the rejects to the other CCAs. This isn’t too different from BP, but at least we do have a good say in our choices of members.

Anyways, my visit could be summarised as such:

Me: Sujay, so what time’s the ST selection test on Friday?
*Sujay gives a blank look with an eerie smile*

Me: What about the location?
*Sujay repeats the feat flawlessly*

Me: And the interview?
*Instead of the eerie smile, it was a creepy smile. Not wait, they’re the same.*

…

…

…

C’mon! All these stuffs are usually discussed and settled waaaay beforehand during the holidays!

Anyways, I’ll try, as much as possible, to help y’all in these first 3 months… Not that I wanna spoonfeed y’all, or take away your responsibilities, but I think it’s really disturbing that y’all didn’t plan out stuffs in details when it’s 2 DAYS before the day itself! Yes, y’all.

And I don’t hope to see a ST Camp 2006 feat repeated.

Comments(0) 10:52 PM 1 January 2007

Random Stuffs I Found…

Posted by HELiX

You might have seen/read/heard it before, I don’t know, but I just did, so I’ll just share…

…

Local Authority Out to Nab Anime/Manga Fansub Downloaders?

Apparently there have been much buzz about a recent Odex (the official rights owner and distributor for so many animes here in Singapore that I’ve lost count) feedback session, where the company looks set to wage a local war against local fansubs and such downloaders.

“The government wants to clamp down on animation downloads effective… this year(2007).”

“Odex underlined that this sounded like a serious effort on the part of the authorities, who are sick of catching little mama-shops selling pirated batteries. Japanese animation presents a fine opportunity to round up more bodies because there are few legalities to work with.”

Bad news for many anime fans who depend on the work and efforts of fansubbers, since there are many animes in Japan that never gets the right English subtitles translation. And English voice-overs are just plain sucky, ya?

…

Here’s a uber funny parody video of Final Fantasy.

Comments(0) 11:28 PM 1 January 2007

Subject Combination and Time Table.

Posted by HELiX

Orientation has officially ended, and it’s ’bout time I get back my voice.

Ya so, school curriculum begins tomorrow rather interestingly, and for once I’m not too disappointed about lessons. Why?
Here’s my time table for Wednesday, summarised:
8.00am to 9.00am - GP Lecture
9.00am to 11.30am - Nothing. As in, no periods at all. You can do anything you want in the JC, anywhere, and anyhow.
11.30am to 12.30am - Math Lecture.
12.30am - KTHXBYE!

Yeah, so I attend 4.5 hours of school, for 2 hours of lectures. That’s all.

…

And next, I gotta ask everyone… WTF IS WRONG WITH COMPUTING?!

Ok, I got my subject combination today, and it was exactly my first choice, Math, Physics, Computing and Econs. Just about everyone from BP took Math, Physics, Chemistry and Econs. That’s understandable, because all of us are so sick of Geography so we replaced it with Econs. Math, Physics and Chemistry are the 3 most important subjects for University application, and has a close link to whatever we studied back in Secondary school.

Fine, so I went around telling people I took Computing instead of Chemistry (but seriously, I’ve heard enough that Chemistry in JC is really tough, so no regrets dropping it for a subject that I love). And their reaction is like, o___o

C’mon! You stereotypical people! I’m DIFFERENT! =P

What’s wrong with COMPUTING? And when I ask, why not? Most will reply: D’you have any idea what’s computing?

DUH.

Get this, people: A large percentage of the World’s billionaires are in the IT industry, so it’s the way to go! =D

Of course, you could go banking, real estate, oil or simply become a Prince of some country.

But really, computing FTW. Stop giving that WTF face people, I’m pretty sure I’ll handle it pretty well.

…

And then I think about it. The classes in JC, like upper sec, are sorted based on the subject combinations.

Not being stereotypical here, but just some simple logic and common sense: No girls takes computing.

I mean, you think about it, it’ll be CREEPY if there was a decently large group of ‘em. Not that I’m expecting totally none, but it’ll definitely be less than a handful…

And so, my class in JC will probably have no girls, or at the very most, a couple of ‘em. Meh, so Chemistry does have its benefits LOL.

But no, this isn’t one of my considerations and factors affecting me in JC. Just hope I won’t have any, like, UH, sudden increment of raging hormones UM =___=

Comments(0) 11:08 PM 1 January 2007

Gamers in SG

Posted by HELiX

After going back to my gaming roots through F.E.A.R.’s crappy expansion pack, it makes me think quite a bit about Singapore’s gaming community.

Maple.

DotA.

Which are, personally (don’t be offended), crappy games. One’s a game which you can’t PK, which takes the fun from MMORPGs, and the other’s… some mod by some guy “played by Warcraft III failures”, to quote from the proest Warcraft III player formerly from BP.

Not that I wanna be offensive to y’all DotA players, because I do respect teams like Zenith with players doing 200+ apm, but my rights to say this comes from the fact that I’ve actually won something from gaming tournaments.

But really, Singaporeans should start appreciating other games. CS is great, although, sadly, it’s dominated by ITE doods, which leaves me to try professional gaming in games like UT/Quake/Doom. It’s about time we match up with South Korea’s US$1.5 trillion Starcraft industry.

Comments(0) 2:55 AM 1 January 2007