#bioengineeringstudyblr

9 November 2022

28 August 2023

15 August 2023

I'm back. Today marks the first day of my last academic year as an undergraduate student. I had a 3 hour long lecture in the morning which didn't really end well. I have been sick for the past 1 week and don't do well in cold spots as it aggravates my cough. So the 3 hour lecture felt more like torture to me. But hey, warm water helps a lot and it made me feel better.

Hi! Glad to find someone learning german too! 💙❤️ I understand that feeling of not having motivation to study it, I also had that phase when I just couldn't get myself to study the module. I just find stuff that I am interested in or make some small goals to work towards.

For instance, I found a science paper in german when I was doing my internship and made it a goal to be able to understand about 50% of the sentences in this specific paper. As I am also aiming to further study in germany, I also had a small goal to at least get a level A2 certification by the end of my unversity journey. I try to put small goals to work towards along the way, that are relevant and of interest to me to keep me motivated so to speak!

Not only that, I got hooked onto listening to german nursery rhymes, music or podcasts! I have some of those that I regularly listen to linked here. (I absolutely love backe backe kuchen hahaha) However, I am still finding other ways to keep myself interested in the language and am also slowly learning how else I can better learn this language. I am not too sure if this is useful for you but having a goal, even a small one, would do well in motivating you to study a bit more on it.

Photo dump of late August early September

Been busy lately with lab experiments and project work. But things will be fine after the first term ends. Just got to last another 3 weeks. 🙂🥲🙃

My research work has been going fine so far! Although it seems like I am allocating more tjme to it that I should as I still have 5 other modules to worry about. Well, it is time to juggle between it all! :)

16 August 2023 & 17 August 2023

I had sushi yesterday with my partner and got my favourite mentaiko sauce on the cooked items. 🍙 (My stomach cannot handle raw food sadly so no sashimi :c) Afterwhich, I went to listen to a research seminar and attended my lab session to check on my cells. There are growing pretty well I would say! 😄

My supervisor was really nice and has taught me a lot on how to handle the cells properly. I had to write up a manual for all the stuff he taught me for record purposes as well. But I do find it rather necessary as we are mainly conversing in our mother tongue, which I don't normally use when I am talking to anyone in the lab. So I am pretty glad there was this system in place to ensure I am understanding the information correctly! I didn't really do much after my lab ended when I got home as I am extremely exhausted and was supposed to have an early morning the next day but...

I slept past my alarm. By an hour. I had to rush to wash up and do my hair in 30 minutes without eating any food, except lozenges for my throat/cough. I managed to make it to my lecture hall kinda in time... I was late by 5 minutes but the professor was still doing the course introduction. So thank goodness for that. 🫣 Honestly glad to not be missing this class as I loved this module to bits. Second image was taken in my lecture hall. Since I was late, I felt bad to sit at the back, so I sat near the front of the professor. 🫥

After my lecture, I met with my partner again for lunch and headed to my school area for a short session to write up my lab manual and some key observations for my project so future me won't be dumb enough to do the steps incorrectly and risk re-culturing all the cells again. I will be heading to the lab again tomorrow after my lectures to do more lab training. 🦠 I am honestly kinda surprised that mammalian cells are quite easy to work with. (for now. This is my current impression. I feel like I might take these words back some time in future.) Hoping for tomorrow's session to be smoothsailing! ❤️💙

17 September 2023

Nanotechnology is really interesting! Been spending more time in school and classes. Coffee has now become a necessity.

November lately, 2023

November has been a ride so far. Here is a detailed overview of my 10 days of November:

Spend most of my days, staring at a code to incorporate a better way to store data in a text file without using an SD card or EEPROM as my arduino board doesnt have that functionality.

Tried out a minimum of 7 data storing methods with the board, only for 1 to work properly

My arduino board becomes fried

Travelled to town to purchase a new board and deliver it to school for further testing

Spent my weekends working on Printed Circuit Boards, checking on designs etc

Coded my weekends away to optimise the codes into functions and tested it with a verification app, at this point, i have added data storage, data retrieval, error handling, data clearing, averaging into the code. All worked with some bugs in place.

Attempted to incorporate with our own app and failed

After group members testing, app is only compatible with old codes and the new script cannot be used. (Illogical as the base code for new script is the exact same and had tested with the old code in this new script and app failed)

PCB board connections had issues, board cannot be powered

Tested and troubleshooted for about 5 hours straight

Found out during dinner that board was not grounded

Went back to solder a connection

Arduino board died before tests cannot be done

Another board used and PCB worked

By the end of tomorrow, this project is over. In the end, we had a working product that can do the functions we have envisioned. It is just unfortunate that my newly coded functions cannot be incorporated with the main code. But at least, it works so my efforts are not all wasted.

But yes, it has been a hectic week and it is mainly from a singular project that requires us ti come up with a product from scratch. Our device is working, and that is the important thing.

My group will be presenting on our product tomorrow morning. Wish us luck! No photos of our product as there is a chance it might be further developed in future.