Day 8

Today we were taught how to make our own liposomes.we turned on the chiller and took out the silica gel from the dryer. We then took out the lipids from the freezer. We poured the silica gel onto the vacuum pump and placed the lipid bottle in the middle before closing the lid and turning it on to desicate the lipids using dehydrating reagent. We placed the lipids into a vacuum flask and waited for it to dehydrate for 30 minutes. After which we weighed out 66.6mg of the dehydrated lipids which were in powder form and proceeded to dissolve it in 2ml of chlorofoam and 1ml of methanol in a round bottom flask. After that we attached the round bottom flask to the rotary evaporator and set it to 90rpm and 40 degrees. We closed the knob to remove the air slowly and waited 30 minutes for the lipid to evaporate.

Day 9

Today we did the extrusion of the lipids. Hui Yee showed us how to use the extruder and we all took turns to use it. Firstly she showed us how to assemble the extruder and we got to see the the components of the machine. Then we all took turns to extrude the lipid solution that was evaporated yesterday after she demonstrated to us the process step by step. It was very nerve-wrecking as we were handling heat and pressure at the same time. There was a part where we had to quickly turn off the switch after we saw liquid coming out and it was very scary as the extruder would make a loud noise when this happened. However we soon got used to it and it became an easy task after we learnt to follow the safety procedures. We measured the diameter of the liposomes that we extruded to determine their size.

After the work shadowing we followed Hui Yee and her friends to canteen 2 to sample her recommendation of ayam penyet. She treated us to it and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We also got to interact with her on university life and she told us about the nature of her work. She had another intern with her at the time from Australia and we also made friends with the intern. It was a great opportunity to get to know more people amd find out more about their diverse backgrounds! We were then dismissed after lunch.

Day 10

Today was the final day of our workshadowing. We presented our ideas in front of our mentors against other teams from NYJC, JJC and AJC. It was fun to share ideas and exhange pointers with them. We presented our ideas to our judges who then evaluated what we had learnt. It was deeply satisfying to see our mentors' happy faces as they saw us show ofd what we learnt over the past 2 weeks. After that we went for a reception amd got the chance to mingle with the students from the other JCs. The food was great too! :)

all too soon it was time for the finale of finales! The winners were announced and we came in with a merit award! :) i felt glad that we managed to impress the judges with our work. :D the programme ended on a high note as we reluctantly bid each other goodbe and went ourseparate ways. But of course not before taking farewell pictures to keep! :)

Day 4

Today we shadowed Yuchen as he showed us the hand lay up process. In the morning, we followed him to the Mechanical and Aerospace Lab where he acquired his test samples. He also brought us to cut out the samples using a cutting machine and we were dismissed for lunch. After lunch, we went with him to the lab where he started aligning pieces of sample that he got us to cut and then taped them to prevent them from being blown away. He also brought another Ph.D student with him to help out with the process. They applied resin onto the sample and waited for it to cool. We were also given the chance to try it out for ourselves as he allowed us to apply the resin and help weigh out some harderner which was used to coat the sample. we also got the chance to interacted with the senior and he told us more about MSE and its job prospects. After that we were dismissed.

Day 5

today we were left to focus on our innovation challenge. We continued our discussion about our idea and then began creating our presentation slides. We talked about the mechanics and tried to fit in what we learnt from the previous days. It was challenging to incorporate engineering concepts into our idea as this was the first time that we had to come up with a product that showcased specifically what we had been taught to us.

As this was our last day being attached to the Defence department, we were given some time off to enjoy a movie in the meeting room. We spent some time watching The Avengers after our innovation challenge discussion and had the opportunity to unwind and relax in the comfort of the meeting room before finally bidding farewell to our first week mentors and going off for the weekend.

Day 6

We met our new mentor Hui Yee who is a PhD student studying nanobiology in MSE. She is currently doing a study on transport of sustained release carriers for delivery of therapeuticagents to the posterior segment of the eye. After the iintroduction, she brought us around the biology labs and gave us a talk on liposomes and her nature of work before taking us to the Ocular Therapeutic Engineering Centre (OTEC) where she works. We were shown mixers, freezers and other lab equipment today. We shadowed her while she did some pipetting work. We got the chance to handle the pipettes and played around with them. In fact, we liked hem sk much that Hui Yee decided to give us free apparatus as souvenirs! (Of course they were cheap ones that were disposable haha). We were then dismissed to do our Innovation Challenge.

Day 7

We were given some "homework" from yesterday which was to find out about ELISA method and to explain our findings to Hui Yee today. She asked us questions about ELISA such as its application, the mechanics etc. We were able to scrape through her arsenal of questions, only to find out that we could not even answer a simple mathematical calculation that she asked us casually next, which resulted in her having to lecture us repeatedly on volume of reagent and dilute. After that we shadowed her while she did some pipette transfer again and we were also asked to do what she did. We took a 2 pipettes for our first transfer to put the reagent into the diluant. Due to our carelessness, we messed up quite a bit at first and was guided by Hui Yee on the proper technique of using the micropipette. She showed us how to hold it and tap it into the tube to secure it before withdrawing the reagent and diluant. To take out things we had to press once and press twice to pour it out. Then we had to eject the used part before using the micropipette again.

After that we followed her over to a machine that measured the concentration of the liposomes which we had pipetted earlier by utilising zetasizer software. Again, we used micropipettes to transfer our solutions into curvettes to be placed into the mahine before activating it. Hui Yee told us about the significance of this step in her research.

We also met our other mentor who was doing her own work in the lab. Did not get to interact with her much though because she was very busy. After our second round of pipetting, we were given some instructions on cleaning up and then we were free to go.

Day 3

We were given a theory lesson on Finite Element Analysis by Dr Nadeesh today. He explained to us the FEA and its applications and demonstrated to us how to apply the formula into calculations. We were shown simplified examples of objects which FEA could be applied on and also told about the real life applications such as aircraft missiles, submersible compartments amongst others. We were also taught Young's Modulus which was a part of Hooke's Law. We found it engaging as these information is not taught to us in JC and we felt the importance of FEA through this lesson. It stimulated our interest in the basics of engineering and gave us an insight into how researchers apply theory to solve real world problems.

We also talked about our Innovation Challenge and came up with ideas such as a hybrid bicycle, climate-adaptable umbrella etc. We began assigning roles to each other as we started planning our presentation to showcase next week. After much discussion, we decided to start by presenting the problem first and illustrating its effects before presenting our idea and finally going into the specifics of it. This provided a platform for us to apply what we had learnt into our idea such that we showed our understanding of materials science.

We had the opportunity to have tea with Dr Nadeesh and we got to know him more as we interacted with him over tea. He shared with us about his educational background and told us more about his work. He also elaborated on some of his job scope and gave us a further insight on what being a researcher is all about.

Day 2.

We were brought into the materials lab 2 of the Mechanics and Aeronautical Building to spectate Mentor Yuchen cut out pieces of glass fibre reinforced epoxy tensile laminate. It was very nostalgic as it reminded us of our Design and Technology classes back in Secondary school. Thereafter, we proceeded to the Surface Characterisation Room (SCR) in materials lab 1, where we experminted with the Olympus SZX7 Optical Microscope and had fun using the microscope to view enlarged images of our finger and nails. We then proceeded for lunch and spent some time discussing our Innovation Challenge ideas before proceeding on to our next activity.

After lunch, we followed mentor yuchen to Biological Lab 1 to coat samples before going back to the SCR where we shadowed him in his work which was to observe damage state of his previously cut samples of epoxy tensile laminate using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). It was tedious work as he had to go through many rounds of testing which involved careful monitoring and accurate measurements before he could get results.He also explained to us Poisson Ratio which was the change in the dimensions around different directions. He also explained the difference between strength/stress and strain and talked to us about various other machines.

Day 1:

Today we were introduced to materials science & engineering. We were given a broad overview of material science and engineering and its applications in the aerospace industry. We learnt the difference between material science and materials engineering. We toured the laboratories where we viewed various machines that tested the tensile strength of materials and got to touch and feel some of them. We then shadowed a Dr Nadeesh on his research and got to interact with him and find out more about his work.

We felt that materials science is a very promising field of work as it is related to major industries such as aerospace, defence and even business and finance! We were also able to interact with staff who were not our mentors who enthusiastically gave us an explanation on their work. These gave us an insight on how the researchers go about their work and how intricate their work is. We also managed to tour the campus during our breakand familiarised ourselves with some parts of the University.

We look forward to the subsequent days of work shadowing where we will be able to carry out simple experiments, be involved in simulations and come up with ideas for our Innovation Challenge.