Sydney

Represented Monash for this warman competition. Hell Yeah, it was Sydney.

I had sleepless nights before my team and I had to fly off to Sydney. It was all because we had to hand carry our robots. And of course, there're aluminium plates attached to the robot. Passing the customs will be a headache. We had a really rough time when we reached the airport. Despite us presenting the letters from Monash Malaysia and also Engineers Australia. It took us at least 2 hours to persuade the authorities for us to hand carry our robots. 

This was us before leaving Malaysia. 

SWAR group 10 :D 

Our flight was 11.40pm. It was a safe flight. A pleasant one either. The air ticket (air-asia) was rather cheap, RM 1327. 50 % will be sponsored by the University and the Engineers Australia. 

Day 1 

Woolbrokers ! Our hostel for 10 days ! It's really a convenient place to stay. It located in a suburb, but only 10 minutes away from the city centre. It was a cheap place to stay. 4 days were paid off by the Engineers Australia. We paid for the rest of our stay. It was 190 dollars per person. When we received the receipt of payment. We were all shocked. That person in charged actually charged each of us a child rate. Do we look that young ? 

ANDDD Darling Habour !!! The view was amazing ! 3 minutes walk away from our hostel . 

My hair is in a mess :/ 

The night view was even better. 

It was 2 days before the competition. Honestly, we wanted to just tour the whole city all day long and dump our projects aside. The place was just amazing. 

Day 2 

1 day before the competition, and 9 monkeys, still touring around Sydney. This time, to satisfy my cravings. I was looking for Shashimi to eat. And so we decided to head off to the Sydney Fish Market. 

It was 50 Aussie per kilo :3 I knew that the Shashimi was good. But damn, it was the best shashimi that I've had in my entire life. I'm not exaggerating. It was the bomb (Y)

In Malaysia, we have houseflies zooming around food and stuff like that. When I was in Sydney, houseflies were replaced with seagulls -.- they literally FIGHT for your food. When I was unpacking my food, these creatures will start to eye for an opportunity. 

Of course we didn't spend the whole day there. We had to rush back to the hostel, and back with our work ! 

Day 3 , 4 and 5 

It was practice day and followed by the finals. The day for all the competitors to try out their robots. The event was held in the Australia Technology Park. I have no idea where is this. 

The whole idea of this robot building competition was to build a robot (lol duh ) to carry a certain weight of payload (rice) , over a desired height. It was (20 cm up to 120 cm ). So if you carry a heavier weight, and a higher height, obviously your team will obtain higher marks.

 Robot A needs to carry the load from the starting zone all the way to the transferring zone (usually the toughest part). The load is then passed on to robot B, where robot will only have to travel a straight line, to the end zone.  

Our workplace. In my opinion, the set up was just perfect for teams to learn from each other. I was jumping from table to table just to get a glimpse of the other robots. The Australians were really friendly and supportive. They'll show you everything there is on their robots. They wasn't any ' kiasu-ness ' in them. This is how people learn :) By sharing. 

P.s : Pictures below might bore some people. Lots of tech stuff 

University of...... I'm not sure 

University of Auckland 

University of James Cook 

University of Deakin 

University of Melbourne 

Our group photo :3 Monash Sunway 

My teammate and I, setting up our robots before the final run. 

A close up of our robot. This was before we sprayed paint it solid black. It was at a 90% completion stage. 

YES A VIDEO ! OUR RUN. Nerve wrecking as fcuk. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym8J9vVjdtM&feature=youtu.be

( Couldn't upload the video right on the blog. It exceeded the 100MB capacity. )

It was a great sense of accomplishment after our run was successful. Months of hard work from my team had finally paid off. 

Results : 4th placing :) 1.3 marks away from the 3rd place and also 1000 Aussie dollar >.< But it was all about the experience anyways. 

The results table. The University of Newcastle was beyond reach. Their robots were off the charts. Even the second place (RMIT) couldn't compete with them. University of Auckland's robots were amazing. They landed up on the 3rd placing. And there's us, on the 4th :) 

4th placing was good enough. Our advisor back in Malaysia said she couldn't sleep after hearing that we were 4th. It was the first time in 27 years that Monash Malaysia landed in the top 5 and also beating Monash Clayton for the first time in idk how may years. Yup, 9 monkeys. Breaking records. 

We managed to meet up with the Monash Clayton team. It was like a privilege to us :p

Photo spam again :3 

Boys from Monash Clayton and Malaysia 

Advisor from Clayton lifting both of my members with one hand each. He lifts A LOT. 

Was pretty hyped up after the dinner. I actually lifted up the advisor from Clayton. 

\

A photo with all the boys :3 

Everything was great. The food, the company, the friendly Australians. However, something was missing. Maybe more like someone. My best friend. We were supposed in a same semester, however, unfortunate reasons tend to happen. He was half a year behind. It would be prefect if he was in our team. 

Day 6,7,8 and 9 and 10 

The rest of the days were spent touring around the whole place. I think we walked an average of 10km per day. Enjoy the photos == damn lazy to add caption. 

People who deserves a lot of credit for what they did :) Couldn't have done it without the both of you. 

When we came back, lecturers were buzzing about our news. We were featured on the Monash TV screens 

I lol'ed so hard after seeing this. 

:D 

Goofing around :p 

An 11/10 trip. Unforgettable. So, I didn't have any regrets enrolling myself into Engineering :) 

friends

A friend is a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.  and also a person who gives assistance; patron; supporter 

both definition from dictionary.com

I've never been selfish with my friends. It was always about me giving, giving and giving even more. I would say It was a blessing in disguise for me to lose so much of my time and money. Because fake and true friends finally reveal themselves in the end. It takes time to actually see who they really are. 

True friends will be there for you. They DO NOT leech on you, turn their backs on you, the moment when you needed aid the most. True friends will make you say, ' Hey , I wanna be there for this guy when he or she is in trouble.'  I love this quote I've found on Google, ' Making a million friends is not a miracle, the miracle is to make a friend who will stand with you when millions are against you.'

Fake friends are all around us. They may seem nice, but in the end you'll just put them aside in life and continue your own journey without them. They are the people who wasted your effort trying to make things right. Come to think of it, they've made you into a fool. 

For someone like me who drives to University everyday, friends will tend to take advantage of you having a car. ' Friends ' staying around campus will be ' begging ' you to fetch them home, because they'll be too lazy to take a 5 - 10 minutes walk back home. Being the nice victim, not wanting them walking under the scorching heat, I'll usually agree. Sometimes when they're sick, I'll have to fetch them to clinics nearby. 

It wasn't NEVER about them rewarding me with this and that. They only thing they had to do was to feel appreciated. That was all. Well, that thought never really crossed their minds. They treated me like a baby sitter. 

We are all in Engineering School. They've didn't give a damn while I'm doing my project works although we are in the same group. And they be treating you nice just because they need transportation. Other than that, when you're in trouble, they'll just ask you to fuck off. I've had enough. Don't expect me to be fetching parasites around town for dinner, to Sunway Pyramid and anywhere else. Don't expect me to be grouping with you people when the next project comes. 

One of them came up to me and asked me to fetch them back to his hostel. That sentence of me saying ' walk yourself home please ' was maybe the best thing I've ever said this semester. 

Fake friend's are like shadow's, they follow you in the sun , but leave your side when it gets dark. 

Because your eyes, nose, lips,
every look and every breath, every kiss,
still got me dying,
You still got me crying.

At this state now, if a car were to hit me. I would actually ponder whether to move away.

SWAR group 10

There was this project, a project that I knew that was gonna throw most engineers off the road. A project that was gonna make you crack your mind up thinking, staying up until the wee hours of the morning. Maybe even worse not getting any sleep at all. However, it was just another small bump for me, that's what I thought.

Project warman is a competition held every year between the Australia Universities. You can say that it's one of the biggest project of my life as an engineer. This year, 2 device were to be built. Device A and B. Device A has to ferry a payload as heavy as 600 grams, avoid obstacles and lift as high as 80 cm, and transfer the load to Device B, that was the main aim of the project. Sounds easy :D

Device A can be powered by electrical components such as motors and Arduino motherboards. Device B is fully mechanical, no motors are allowed, just pure physics.

I was in charge of device A, which suits me the best, I love how electrical components work and now, I'll have to built a robot from scratch. The phrase ' Bring it on ' kept on flashing in my head.

The main challenge wasn't building the robot. It was finding materials. Specific materials were needed to built what was desired. During the first meeting with my friends, the robot wasn't well planned. A little chaotic I would say. There's more chit- chatting than there's planning. I told myself, if this goes on, the robot might not even move an inch during the day itself.

I knew sitting down, using papers, designing the robot, planning, draining and squeezing out ideas isn't gonna work. My tool box was packed, unpacking most of my tamiya stuff, filling my toolbox with nails, screws, bolts, hammer and all other equipment you will find in a typical tool box, and off I go. Everything I needed was right under my nose. The problem was, where do I start. After this project, I realized that, finding the starting edge was a pain in the ass.

I actually built 2 bases, which I soon scrapped it off which wasn't too ideal. The 3 base was a gamble, it has a dimension of 28 cm x 35 cm. It was a huge base which gave us a slight advantage on placing the mother board, battery and motors. However, in engineering, shit happens. Unexpected problem starts to occur which can drive you up the wall. The new base wasn't too ideal. It was too heavy, I've actually overestimated the strength of the tyres. It was a little too much of me to expect 4 tyres to withstand a weight of 4.6 kg. I swear, if the tyres have the ability to talk, it would be screaming , ' FUCK YOU, WAI KIT ! ' for the whole month. When we programmed the robot to move, we noticed the tyres were sagging outwards. By that, a problem has just been placed on my shoulders.

Since, the tyres does not have the ability to function at its tip top condition, no doubt the robot will have problems translating to the exchange zone. Now, this problem had 8 of us staying all night up, for 2 nights. At least I managed get at least 2 hours of sleep. However, my friends, they didn't have any shut eye, I couldn't put it in words how much I adore them. From the first week until the third week, I was almost on my own, there was a little help here and there. But other than that, I was actually hammering device A, putting all the stress and burden on my shoulders. Somehow, I told myself, if I fail, all 8 of us will fail as well. Therefore, stopping wasn't a choice for me. Even during the holidays ( which didn't feel like one ), coming back to Uni everyday was a necessity. Thank god, help came when I needed them the most. ( I'll elaborate on this later )

After the holidays, most of my friends came back, they knew I've been stressing my brain for the past 3 weeks, the knew my steam ( stamina ) was dropping exponentially low and they knew I would not be contributing much later in the project. They told each other, ' It's ok if Wai Kit doesn't wanna help, it's ok if he wants to sleep, he's dead tired, let him be . ' Now, this means a lot to me, a lot.

About 48 hours before the final deadline, we started working from 7pm up to 6 am. You guys had no idea how mentally tired I was. By 1 am, I was about to yell ' fuck this shit, I'm sleeping. ' I was on the edge of giving up. But leaving my friends to deal with the project alone, nope, no way. By 4 am, my brain finally shut off, I went to sleep. The next morning, the device was 90 % there. Surprised, excited, and nervous at the same time. We did the calibration to the mother board. There it was , that lumpy, no good piece of robot was finally working. My friends, they did it, in one night. Something that I've couldn't done in 3 weeks. You have no idea how gutted I was, pondering whether I'm a good engineer or what.

On the final day, there were 12 groups to present their robots. We were the 10th. Thus, waiting was torturing for us. When it reached the 9th group, no robot succeeded to overcome to full track. We were a little relieved. Finally, our group was called, it was judgement time. I was the one to start the device. My hands were not trembling, but my heart was beating like a drum.

Guess what, we did it ! The only group to pass. Well, we were fucking lucky. Things happened so quickly, even I couldn't believe we passed. The video below will show how lucky we were

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1fk_w4lyvU


I'm too lazy to elaborate anymore. but our group is gonna represent Monash Sunway to Sydney to compete. Proud is the only word to describe how I'm feeling right now.


From this project, I've learnt that pursuing a degree isn't about grades. It's about the passion, the curiosity to learn more, the ability to stand up and say ' It's okay, let's do it again. ' I'm not getting HD's but I certainly love what I'm doing right now.