quick summary 2019

[oct18] Achieved AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional

[oct18] Supervised 2 DCPE students in International Programming Contest and won Special Prize at Japan.

[oct18] Supervised 3 DASE students in SP Group Cogito Ideation Competition and won 2nd runner up award.

[oct18] Supervised multidisciplinary team team DCPE, DEEE, DID in AWS Cloud Technology Hackathon and won 1st runner up award and Visitor's Choice Award at MBSCC.

[oct18] Secured AWS to feature DCPE student for PR launched on youtube for AWS Educate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dprIkNit_F0&t=92 

[Oct18] Mentored 1FT student for International Science Enterprise Challenge 2018 “National Round”. Student (and team) won First Prize.

[nov18] Inducted into AWS Academy Leadership Council (global)

[nov18] Supervised 2 DASE students in Samsung Solve For Tomorrow Challenge and selected as top10 finalist.

[Nov18] Coached 1FT students and was featured on Straits Times “Singapore Poly students' tech solutions to help Parkinson's disease patients and the elderly”. 

[dec18] Supervised multidisciplinary EA teams consist of DEEE DARE DME in SUTD Design Odyssey;1 team won Best Team Award and one student won Best Speaker Award

[Jan19] Trained students for WSS Cloud Computing. 1 student emerged with Medallion of Excellence.

[Feb19] Supervised 3 DCPE students for Airbus-SSTA HADR Challenge. Student team won second prize, and was invited to exhibit at GSTC 2019.

[mar19] Secured sponsorship from AWS for Overseas Study Trip for EEE students to Taylor’s University at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to show & tell the solution developed in hackathon to an audience of about 1000 students from various IHLs.

[mar19] Supervised student in internship project and he was sponsored by EOS, NTU to technical exchange at NASA JPL, California, USA.

[mar19] ECG and mentored PTN students and were awarded SP Model Student Award 2019

[mar19] Supervised five SP teams and two were shortlisted as top 5 among 70 teams based in Singapore in AWS Hackday 2019 Singapore.

[Apr19] Invited to be speaker and spoke at AWS Summit Singapore (Student Track).

[Apr19] Supervised EA 2FT students in AWS DeepRacer League Singapore, defended their pole positions  #4, #6, #45 in a gruesome race on the track with their Reinforced Learning (RL) Autonomous Ground Vehicle (AGV).

[Apr19] Mentored student for university scholarship, was offered NUS EE with Engineering Scholars Programme, and promptly accepted.

[May19] Mentored student for university scholarship, was offered SUTD Global Distinguished Scholarship, and promptly accepted.

[May19] Invited to judge Tech For Good Coding Competitions in SG: Digital Wonderland.

[May19] Inducted into AWS Educate Cloud Ambassador Leadership Council, one of the 18 members globally, amongst peer from MIT, Havard. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/aws-educate-announces-its-inaugural-cloud-ambassador-cohort/

[May19] Invited to speak at Fostering a Growth Mindset (GM) culture in the Faculty -Planning for Continuous Learning for professors from King Mongkut's University Thailand North Bangkok (KMUTNB).This is a The Growth Mindset Train-the-Trainer programme organized by LSC

[May19] Mentored studentfor TFI SUTD STEP Aviation Forum, team won First Prize.

[May19] Industry Visit to Google Data Center.

[May19] Mentored and prepared students for PSC Scholarship. A student accepted PSC Engineering Scholarship.

[Jun19] Secured Grab Singapore for student internship in AY1920S2

[Jun19] Mentored student for SUTD-Google Computer Science Summer Institute Extension Program (CSSIx), a two weeks of intensive, interactive, hands-on and fun programme at SUTD’s campus and Google’s Singapore office, and a project.

[Jun19] Supervised 2 teams of students in Tan Kah Kee Young Inventor Award. One team won commendation prize, another team shortlisted as finalist.
[Jul19] Supervised SP EEE student teams in CodeXtremeApps Hackathon Open Category, one team of EEE EA students won First Prize.

[Jul19] Supervised EEE EA student teams in Engineering Innovation Challenge, one team of EEE EA students won First Runner-up Prize.

[Jul19] Supervised EA student teams and shortlisted among top 20 finalist teams in IKEA Young Designer Award (YDA).

[Jul19] Recruited EEE and SoC students for WSS CC 2020, and started training sessions.

[Jul19] Mentored student and secured internship with Grab Singapore as Software Engineering Intern in AY1920S1.

[Sep19] Supervised students in Build On Singapore hackathon. Student teams won Champion, First Runner up, and Viewer's Choice Prizes.

[Sep19] Student teams featured on News Portal https://straitstimes.com/singapore/education/youth-draw-from-their-own-experiences-to-find-solutions-in-cross-institution

[Oct19] Supervised students in Hack Asia hackathon. Student teams won Second Place Prize.

[Nov19] Supervised students in SmartPoly hackathon. Student teams won First Runner up, and Second Runner Up Prizes.

[Dec19] Supervised students in Smart Nation + U hackathon. Student teams won Champion, First Runner up, and Special Mentioned Prizes.

[Dec19] Industry visit to Grab Internship open house

end of 2018

[jan18] Mentored MDP students offered SUTD Global Distinguished Scholarship, SUTD Merit Scholarships.
[jan18] Mentored FYP student offered and accepted SUTD Global Merit Scholarship.
[jan18] Coached 2 students (DCPE1FT, DIT2FT) passed exam for AWS certified Solutions Architect Associate (SAA)
[jan18] Supervised FYP groups Smart Club House won Gold, and JAE chatbot won commendation award respectively in Smart Poly FYP Challenge.
[jan18] winner FYP projects exhibited at SmartFest2018.
[jan18] Supervised EA students won Airbus - SSTA HADR Challenge 2018
[feb18] Mentored EA students that won Airbus - SSTA HADR Challenge 2018 demo their solution to Minister S Iswaran at Global Space & Technology Conference
[feb18] Coached EA students featured by Straits Times and CNA http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/singapore-to-develop-small-satellite-capabilities
[mar18] Supervised EA MDP students won coveted Best Business Pitching prize in Social Innovation Project Closing Showcase, SUTD.
[apr18] Supervised EA MDP students won Commendation Award in Tan Kah Kee Young Inventors Award
[apr18] Supervised EA 1FT students won 2nd runner up in Cat-E, Singapore Amazing Flying Machine Competition.
[jun18] Supervised EA students to Make4ThePlanet (M4TP) Hackathon
[jun18] Supervised DCPE DEEE DVMD students to AWS Hackday Hackathon
[jun18] Supervised DCPE DEEE DVMD students to Bosch Hackathon and won First Prize.
[jul18] Coached students that won 1st prize Bosch Hackathon to pitch at Boschville.
[jul18] Managed a sponsored overseas trip for EA students to International Capstone Design Project (ICDP), Korea.
[jul18] Invited as judge for CodeXtremeApps (CXA) hackathon
[jul18] Supervised DCPE DEEE DVMD DIT students to CXA Hackathon, 3 teams selected as Finalist of 8 teams, 1 team won First Prize.
[jul18] Mentored PTN tutee and received DSO Scholarship.
[aug18] Supervised EA students won Merit Award in LTA Smart Bus Challenge.
[aug18] Featured on news article on TNP https://www.tnp.sg/news/singapore/cultivating-growth-mindset
[sep18] Managed a sponsored overseas trip for DIT students to pitch to CTO motorola at Chicago, USA.
[sep18] Supervised DASE1FT students and selected as finalist and won 2nd runner up in COGITO 2018.
[sep18] Supervised students, Merit Award, SUSS-Microsoft Analytics Hackathon
[oct18] Supervised DCPE students, Special Prize, International Programming Contest (Procon)
[oct18] Supervised DCPEDEEE DVMD students, First Runner Up Award, and Visitor's Choice Award, AWS Cloud Technology Hackathon

quick summary 2017

dear readers, as some of you guessed yours truly went off the grid from the inherent lack of updates for the last year. Sorry for the hiatus at this blogsphere. yours truly was busy making ends meet in real life.

2017 was BRILLIANT!!!! His dedication to making the ends meet were rewarded with victories.

the following list is a shameless plug extracted from his resume:

2017 Supervisor, Gold award for “Smart Club House”, and Commendation award for “Smart JAE ChatBot with NCS ChatConnect”, SmartPoly FYP Challenge

2017 Supervisor, “MakeSense1”, special prize, International Programming Contest (ProCon), Japan.

2017 Mentor, second prize, Cisco APJ Global Problem Solver Challenge

2017 Mentor, “Honourable Mention” prizes, AWS IoT APP Challenge

2017 Mentor, First Prize in student category, AWS Hackday, IoT hackathon

2017 Mentor, second runner up, Bosch BoT Hackathon

2017 Mentor, student startup “MakerFoundry LLP”, product development “SPEEEduino”

2017 Speaker, and panel member, AWS Singapore Summit, AWS Education User group

2017 Speaker, Maker Conference Singapore

2017 Organizer, ASEAN100 hackathon, sponsored by AWS, Bosch, Cisco.

Infrared Goggles an Urban Armoury Series

The objective of Infrared goggles is to protect privacy of a private citizen in this social media frenzied world where one could be accidentally included in the massive occurrence of picture and video taking in public places and then sharing on social media.

True, one could argue that why not wear a sunglasses or oversized sunnies? The matter of discussion here is for the private citizen to remain connected and socially included in the community, maintaining eye contact with another human being during a conversation while being shielded from preying lenses. On the contrary, sunglasses abstracted such functions and hence the less emphatic approach. The crux of this i'ble is based on the concept of human eyes are incapable of perceiving infrared light at the spectrum of 700nm to 1000nm, while modern lenses and picture taking devices are able to captured it. More details here https://www.eyespypro.com/pages/Understanding-IR-Illuminiation.html While wearing this Infrared Goggles, the humans engaged in the conversation will be oblivious to the urban armour, but image acquisition devices will perceived light. It is very simple to construct Infrared Googles. One would need some Infrared LED strip, a clear type eye protection PPE, some hot glue, and adequate power supply. In this i'ble, an 850nm Infrared LED strip is used with a 59mm clear type eye protection PPE. power supply is LiFePO4 battery pack that supplies 12V with a capacity of 2800mAH.

this post is available on instructables http://www.instructables.com/id/Infrared-Googles-an-Urban-Armoury-Series/

SPEEEduino v1.0 and the VooDoo sequence

At that moment in time, yours truly only have 1x working Arduino Uno lying around, and definitely could not do Arduino as ISP to burn bootloader into a new ATMega328p on the SPEEEduino. So he transplanted the ATMega328p what is in working condition from the Arduino Uno into SPEEEduino, assumes it will work straight out of the box, and start to program away. Fate took an unfortunate turn when he tries to download the code into SPEEEduino transplanted with ATMega328p.

yours truly was greeted with the legendary
"
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 1 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x47

"

he thought he had a batch of bricked PCB, but upon closer examinations he noticed the LED on pin13 blinks according to the example code downloaded via the Arduino Uno to verify the functionality of ATMega328p before the transplant.

Then he verified the following connection via continuity test

DTR->pin1(MCU)->C3=ok

tx(CP2102)->rx pin2(MCU)=ok

rx(CP2102->tx pin3(MCU)=ok

VCC(CP2102)->pin7(MCU)=ok

GND(CP2102)->pin8(MCU)=ok

Computing Environment

1. Win8.1, Arduino IDE 1.6.7. SPEEEduino with transplanted ATMega832p gave this error of avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

2. Ubuntu14, Arduino IDE 1.6.8. SPEEEduino with transplanted ATMega832p works out of the box in this environment.

A little consolation prize is needed to keep troubleshooting to solve the mystery of not working in windows environment, but works in linux environment.

If you landed on this page looking for solution for the legendary error of avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding or avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 1 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x47 look no further than the next step where yours truly outlined the voodoo sequence. If you are interested to know the troubleshooting sequence, look further.

SPEEEduino is connected with CP2102 on a valid com port on a lenovo laptop running windows8.1 and Arduino IDE 1.5.6 r2 with verbose mode turn on upload via File->preferences

when you are about to press the "upload" button to compile and download the hex to the board, press and hold the "reset" button on SPEEEduino. upon seeing the first handshake "avrdude: Send: 0 [30] [20] ", release the reset button. you will now able to program the ATMega328p. refer to the screenshot for details.

this voodoo sequence seems to be counter intuitive, because Arduino Bootloader supports auto reset feature with a 0.1uF cap and 10K resistor is connected between the DTR line to the RST on ATMega328.

yours truly took a 2 days scraping the Internet forum posts, and experimenting on many laptops to be able to download the hex successfully.

this voodoo sequence is the workaround for the legendary error of avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding or avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 1 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x0a

Good Riddance

Post is also available on http://www.instructables.com/id/SPEEEduino-a-Christmas-Special/