Showcase Reflection

Team Wall-ET

The video introduction at the start was an engaging one. The only team that uses video introduction to guide audiences to their topic for the day and after that leading the audience from the problem faced into the proposed solution. Desmond, An Rou, Irfan, Zahid, and Wei Jian are the presenters for this project on the thermal wall. Each of them demonstrated good delivery of their slides and shows confidence in the content that they are going to present.

 

Desmond introduction guides us to the problem face and links it with their proposed solution by linking the hot and humid environment we have in Singapore to the thermal wall idea. An Rou explained clearly how various stakeholders benefit from their thermal wall proposal. She showed enthusiasm in presenting her slides and enthusiasm is what most of the presenter lack of after I assessed most of the group presentations. Zahid and Irfan both are not rushing through their presentation compared to other groups presenters when other presenters start to rush through their slides, I couldn’t really understand what they are trying to present. Wei Jian clearly explained the difference between their proposed solution and the current implementations by comparing their thermal wall and commercial wall through the benefits of the thermal wall.

 

This project shows me that even heat energy can be recycled to give us electrical energy and reduce the heat gain in the building.

 

The presentation can be improved by having more engagement with the audiences like asking questions and participate in an activity like what “Team Solution” did at the start of their presentation by telling the audience to close their eyes and imagine a scenario set by the presenter.

Critical Reflection

This module provided me with the essential communication skills I need to present myself and the ideas I have to my target audiences in the future. The goal I’ve set for myself at the start of the module is to convey my ideas to other people through writing or presenting in front of the class confidently. Through setting up the presentation for the research project and rehearsals conducted prior to the presentation allows me to reach my objective. I believe that by conversing more in English will help me improve my communication skills. Through daily reflection writing will let me organize my thoughts better and further improve my writing skills for future use.

 

The focus of my research project is to eliminate the provision of single-use plastic from school. Through all the brainstorming sessions I had with my teammates, we slowly narrow down our options and it boils down to the idea of doing a research on single-use plastic. Our initial plan was to research on “Green Roof for HDB estates”, but after using websites such as “Onesearch” and “Google Scholar” we have realized that this idea is not feasible due to limited resources such as research and thesis. The in-depth research on single-use plastics allows me to see the bigger picture, the result of over-consumption of single-use plastics as a nation cause our only landfill to run out of space soon. It would have been a struggle for me to put this point into context and presenting it to the class as my proficiency in english language is weak. Fortunately, with the help of my teammates, I’ve managed to pull through this obstacle.

Technical Report Draft #1

Problem statement: 

In 2017, the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) rolled out a campaign “Sustainable Singapore Movement” to cut down on waste generation and wants Singapore to be a “Zero Waste Nation”. According to the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) vision statement, the university seeks to be an innovative leader in the education industry. By being the first educational institution in Singapore to fully recycle all single-use plastics in canteens, SIT will be a model of “Zero Waste Nation” for other educational establishments in Singapore. 

Currently, SIT canteens use non-recyclable plastic products such as Polystyrene (PS) and Low-density polyethylene (LDPE). The difficulty in recycling such plastic materials will result in an increase in plastic waste generated as it will take hundreds of years for it to fully decompose. Also, the location of recycling bins are not strategically placed, hence, it is not fully optimized. The lack of awareness of recycling impedes the university’s vision of being a model for other educational institutions in Singapore.  

By replacing current plastic material to recyclable ones such as Polyethylene terephthalate (PETE) and Polypropylene (PP), these materials are easier and more common to recycle.  

These plastics will be catalyzed into other forms and reuse for a different purpose. Organization of workshops and talks will be done so as to make an effort to increase awareness amongst the SIT community. With the strategical placement of recycling bins, it is able to encourage more people to recycle hence, reducing the amount of waste generated in SIT.  

Purpose statement: 

The purpose of this proposal is to convince SIT estates division to include “Strictly usage of PETE and PP products only” condition into the leasing agreement between SIT and vendors.  

Background: 

This proposal has been developed in response to the campaign “Zero Waste Nation” created by the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) for finding solutions to the issue of increasing waste generation in Singapore. 

Under the Sustainable Singapore Blueprint 2015, Singapore aims towards becoming a zero waste nation by 2030 (MEWR, 2017). This campaign focuses on the 3R; Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. It is a joint effort between the government, businesses, and the community so as to build a sustainable Singapore for its citizens and future generations to come. Figures from the National Environment Agency (NEA) have shown that out of the 7.7 million tonnes of waste generated in 2017, only 61% of the waste are being recycled. The amount of waste generated peaked at 2016 at 7.8 million tonnes.  

The extensive waste generation has resulted in a decrease in the capacity of Singapore’s only landfill,Pulau Semakau, to store these waste. At the rate of which waste is generated, the lifespan of the landfill is expected to shorten by 10 years (mewr.gov.sg, 2018). Ultimately, the resultant waste generated are negatively impacted due to lack of awareness on what can and cannot be recycled, how to recycle, and the importance of recycling.Therefore, reducing single-use plastic waste in Singapore Institute of Technology at Dover (SIT@Dover) is the first step towards a zero waste nation campaign.  

Plastics have a huge carbon footprint and the resources used in the production and disposal of plastic emits toxic chemicals. Specific infrastructure is needed to recycle certain plastic materials while non-recyclable plastics are sent to incinerator plants which result in the release of toxic gas into the environment. Only a meager 6% of the total plastic waste generated was recycled despite it consisted of up to 10% of total waste generated (NEA, 2017).  

Removing procurement and usage of non-recyclable plastic in SIT@Dover would allow for a reduction of non-recyclable plastic used. Installing a plastic recycling machine would also allow the SIT community to be a part of this “zero plastic waste” project. Through the implementation of such machines, plastic waste is recycled and reused for a different purpose.

Readers Response Draft 6

In the web page, Driverless Vehicles: A Vision for Singapore’s Transport, Ministry of Transport (MOT) website (2018) stated that the addition of Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology to Singapore transport system will bring various benefits to the society. Benefits like car sharing system allow commuters to have more traveling options rather than owning a car. Car sharing will also lead to reduced numbers of private vehicles on the road in the future, thus reducing the environmental footprint and usage of manpower. According to the web page, trials were conducted to ensure such technology could blend into our current transport system, with the first public road testing conducted at One-north. A committee on Autonomous Road Transport for Singapore (CARTS), with renowned international experts, academics, and industry representatives has been set up to oversee and explore how this AV technology can further benefit Singapore. With everything in place, all that remains is for this technology to prove its worth in the future.

While this article describes the benefits of AV technology, it certainly fails to address the negative side of having such technology, for example, safety issues. Safety issues such as sensors malfunctioning, terrorism and the danger of having both manual and autonomous car on the road.

Firstly is the sensors malfunctioning issue. These self-driving cars depend heavily on sensors to be their guide, therefore if there’s disruption in signal or sensors malfunction, road accidents might happen. Recent cases have shown that self-driving cars are still not safe for use, with two fatal accidents reported in the United States caused by self-driving cars earlier this year according to Broussard(2018). Investigations have also shown that the Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) sensors have its limitations with reference to one of the incidents that took place in Tempe, Arizona. According to investigations by Singh(2018), the pedestrian is within human vision range based on the in-car camera footage and theory of LIDAR sensor but the vehicle did not slow down when it was supposed to, and it ended in tragedy.

Secondly, with terrorism looming large, autonomous car just might be the next suitable target. As Broussard (2018) mentioned, these self-driving cars are vulnerable to hackers as they depend on GPS, therefore pocket-size GPS jammers can be easily obtained online for people who want to bypass GPS-enabled toll booths for free. Think about it on a larger scale, terrorist applying the same logic by jamming the autonomous cars GPS signal using a bigger bandwidth jammer at the highway could result in the next big incident.

Lastly, having both manual and autonomous car together on the road poses danger. According to MOT website(2018), car sharing will reduce the numbers of private vehicles on the road in the future. This means that there will still be manually driven cars on the road with a mixture of autonomous car. Muoio(2016) shared that on February 2016, a Google autonomous car got into its first accident by driving into a bus in a merging lane due to wrong assumption. The autonomous car assumed that the bus will give way and drive straight into its path. Assuming all the autonomous car are calibrated in the same signal, they can read each other. But it can’t read what a manually driven car is trying to do.

In conclusion, there is still room for improvement for AV technology before it can be safely implemented in Singapore.

References

Ministry Of Transport Singapore (2018).  Driverless Vehicles: A Vision for Singapore’s Transport.Retrieved October 11, 2018, from https://www.mot.gov.sg/transport-matters/motoring/Detail/driverless-vehicles-a-vision-for-singapore-s-transport/

Broussard, M. (2018, March 23). Self-Driving Cars Still Don’t Know How to See. Retrieved October 11, 2018, from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/uber-self-driving-fatality-arizona/556001/

Singh, H. (2018, March 23). Uber’s Autonomous Car Accident Investigation – Towards Data Science. Retrieved October 11, 2018, from https://towardsdatascience.com/ubers-autonomous-car-accident-investigation-57fcc88cb6e7

Muoio, D. (2016, August 25). 6 scenarios self-driving cars still can’t handle. Retrieved October 12, 2018, from https://www.businessinsider.sg/autonomous-car-limitations-2016-8/?r=US&IR=T

 

Driverless Vehicles: Reader response draft 5

In the article, Driverless Vehicles: A Vision for Singapore’s Transport, Ministry of Transport (MOT) website (2018) stated that with the addition of Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology to our transport system will bring various benefits to our society. Benefits like car sharing system allows commuters to have more traveling option rather than owning a car. Car sharing will also lead to reduce numbers of private vehicles on the road in the future thus reducing the environmental footprint and usage of manpower. Trials were conducted to ensure such technology will be able to blend into our current transport system, with the first public road testing conducted at one-north. Committee on Autonomous Road Transport for Singapore (CARTS) has been set up to oversee and explore how this AV technology can further benefit our country, with renowned international experts, academics and industry representatives as its members. With everything in place, all its left is for this technology to prove its worth in the future.

While this article describes the benefits of AV technology, it certainly fails to address the negative side of having such technology for example safety issues.

Safety issues were not brought up in this article, which I feel that it is a very important point being missed out. As these self-driving cars depend heavily on sensors to be their eyes, accident is bound to happen if there’s disruption in signal or sensors malfunction while traveling on the road. Recent cases have shown us that self-driving cars are still not safe to be use, according to Broussard(2018) earlier this year 2 fatal accidents were reported in the United States caused by self-driving cars. Broussard(2018) also mentioned that these self-driving cars are vulnerable to hackers, as pocket size GPS jammers can be easily obtained online for people that wants to bypass GPS-enabled tollbooths for free. As self-driving cars navigates around by GPS, once it loses signal that’s the end isn’t it? It will go straight down the road and crash anything that is in its path turning it into a murder machine.

Autonomous car can’t react as fast as humans, it can only sense what is in front or beside the car using sensors. For example, another car or pedestrian suddenly goes into the path of the autonomous car, it can’t stop in time to prevent accident from happening as it lack intuitive thinking compared to human. As humans, we have that protective instinct that let us make wiser decision and maneuver away from danger or reduce the impact of the crash by steering into a field or somewhere with lesser obstacles. This is what an autonomous car lack of, the human instinct.

Broussard(2018) stated that,” To date, all self-driving car “experiments” have required a driver and an engineer to be onboard at all times. Now, even with that safety measure, a pedestrian has died.” The safety issues must be resolve, if not it will just further discouraged people to support this piece of technology.

References

Ministry Of Transport Singapore (2018). Retrieved from Driverless Vehicles: A Vision for Singapore’s Transport: https://www.mot.gov.sg/transport-matters/motoring/Detail/driverless-vehicles-a-vision-for-singapore-s-transport/

Broussard.M. (2018, March 20). Retrieved from Self-Driving Cars Still Don’t Know How to See: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/uber-self-driving-fatality-arizona/556001/

Driverless Vehicles, Reader response (Draft 4)

In the article, Driverless Vehicles: A Vision for Singapore’s Transport , Ministry of Transport (MOT) website (2018) stated that with the addition of Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology to our transport system will bring various benefits to our society. Benefits like car sharing system allows commuters to have more traveling option rather than owning a car. Car sharing will also lead to reduce numbers of private vehicles on the road in the future thus reducing the environmental footprint and usage of manpower. Trials were conducted to ensure such technology will be able to blend into our current transport system, with the first public road testing conducted at one-north. Committee on Autonomous Road Transport for Singapore (CARTS) has been set up to oversee and explore how this AV technology can further benefit our country, with renowned international experts, academics and industry representatives as its members. With everything in place, all its left is for this technology to prove its worth in the future.

While this article describes the benefits of AV technology, it certainly fails to address the negative sides of having such technology for example, job loss and safety issues.

Truck, bus and taxi drivers will be affected greatly when av technology hit its peak leaving them jobless and creates another social issue to resolve. According to Goldman Sachs on CNBC article (2017),” Truck drivers, more so than bus or taxi drivers, will see the bulk of that job loss, according to the report. That makes sense, given today’s employment: In 2014, there were 4 million driver jobs in the U.S., 3.1 million of which were truck drivers, Goldman said. That represents 2 percent of total employment.” Although the numbers shown in the CNBC article is based on United States of America statistics, but it describes how will AV technology impact our society negatively. Currently in Singapore, as of August 2018 we have a total number of 97769 taxi drivers vocational license issued out according to Land Transport Authority of Singapore website. The statistic also shows an increasing amount of people acquiring taxi drivers license, hence when AV technology saturation peaks in Singapore public transport workforce will take a big hit.

Safety issues were not brought up in this article, which I feel that it is a very important point being missed out. As these self-driving cars depend heavily on sensors to be their eyes, accident are bound to happen if there’s disruption in signal or sensors malfunction while traveling on the road. Recent cases have shown us that self-driving cars are still not safe to be use, according to Broussard(2018) earlier this year 2 fatal accidents were reported in the United States caused by self-driving cars. Broussard(2018) also mentioned that these self-driving cars are vulnerable to hackers, as pocket size GPS jammers can be easily obtained online for people that wants to bypass GPS-enabled tollbooths for free. As self-driving cars navigates around by GPS, once it lose signal that’s the end isn’t it? It will go straight down the road and crash anything that is in its path turning it into a murder machine.

Autonomous car can’t react as fast as humans, it can only sense what is in front or beside the car using sensors. For example, another car or pedestrian suddenly goes into the path of the autonomous car, it can’t brake in time to prevent accident from happening as it lacks of intuitive thinking compared to human.

 

Broussard(2018) stated that,” To date, all self-driving car “experiments” have required a driver and an engineer to be on board at all times. Now, even with that safety measure, a pedestrian has died.” The safety issues must be resolve, if not it will just further discouraged people to support this piece of technology.

References

Balakrishnan.A. (2017, May 22). Retrieved from Self-driving cars could cost America’s professional drivers up to 25,000 jobs a month, Goldman Sachs says: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/22/goldman-sachs-analysis-of-autonomous-vehicle-job-loss.html

Broussard.M. (2018, March 20). Retrieved from Self-Driving Cars Still Don’t Know How to See: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/uber-self-driving-fatality-arizona/556001/

Land Transport Authority of Singapore (2018). Retrieved from Statistic on amount of taxi drivers in Singapore: https://www.lta.gov.sg/content/dam/ltaweb/corp/PublicationsResearch/files/FactsandFigures/taxi_info_2018.pdf

 

Summary (Draft 3) with thesis statement.

In the article, Driverless Vehicles: A Vision for Singapore’s Transport from Ministry of Transport (MOT) website (2018), MOT stated that with the addition of Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology to our transport system will bring various benefits to our society. Benefit like car sharing system that allow commuters to have one more traveling option rather than owning a car hence reducing numbers of private vehicles on the road in the future. Such will lower the environment footprint and reduce the usage of manpower. Trials had been conducted to ensure such technology will be able to blend into our current transport system, with the first public road testing conducted at one-north. Committee on Autonomous Road Transport for Singapore (CARTS) has been set up to oversee and explore how this AV technology can further benefit our country, with renowned international experts, academics and industry representatives as its members. With everything in place, all its left is for this technology to prove its worth in the future.

While this article describes the benefits av technology can bring us, it certainly fails to address the negative sides of having such technology such as job loss and safety issues.

Truck, bus and taxi drivers will be affected greatly when av technology hit its peak leaving them jobless and creates another social issue to resolve. According to Goldman Sachs on CNBC article (2017),” Truck drivers, more so than bus or taxi drivers, will see the bulk of that job loss, according to the report. That makes sense, given today’s employment: In 2014, there were 4 million driver jobs in the U.S., 3.1 million of which were truck drivers, Goldman said. That represents 2 percent of total employment.” Although the numbers shown in the CNBC article is base on United States of America statistics, but it describes how will AV technology impact our society negatively. Currently in Singapore context, as of August 2018 we have a total number of 97769 taxi drivers vocational license issued out according to Land Transport Authority of Singapore website. The statistic also shows an increasing amount of people acquiring taxi drivers license, hence when av technology saturation peaks public transport workforce will take a big hit.

 

References:

Anita Balakrishnan, CNBC. (2017). Self-driving cars could cost America’s professional drivers up to 25,000 jobs a month, Goldman Sachs says. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/22/goldman-sachs-analysis-of-autonomous-vehicle-job-loss.html

Land Transport Authority of Singapore (2018). Statistic on amount of taxi drivers in Singapore. Retrieved from https://www.lta.gov.sg/content/dam/ltaweb/corp/PublicationsResearch/files/FactsandFigures/taxi_info_2018.pdf

Summary (Draft 2)

In the article “Driverless Vehicles: A Vision for Singapore’s Transport” from Ministry of Transport (MOT) website (2018), MOT stated that with the addition of Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology to our transport system will bring various benefits to our society. Benefit like car sharing system that allow commuters to have one more travelling option rather than owning a car hence reducing numbers of private vehicles on the road in the future. Such will lower the environment footprint and reduce the usage of manpower. Trials had been conducted to ensure such technology will be able to blend into our current transport system, with the first public road testing conducted at one-north. Committee on Autonomous Road Transport for Singapore (CARTS) has been set up to oversee and explore how this AV technology can further benefit our country, with renowned international experts, academics and industry representatives as its members. With everything in place, all its left is for this technology to prove its worth in the future.

Driverless vehicle summary (Draft 1)

In the article “Driverless Vehicles: A Vision for Singapore’s Transport” from Ministry Of Transport (MOT) website (2018), MOT stated that with the addition of “Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology” to our transport system will bring various benefits to our society. Benefits like reducing carbon footprint through “optimizing road usage”, “improve the punctuality of our mass transport” and reduce usage of manpower. The article also address Singapore Government vision on this AV technology, it will be one of the core features in the country future urban planning. “According to a 2011 MIT study in Singapore”, car sharing will be one of AV technology attributes,hence increase accessibility for travelers and reduce carbon footprint. Trials had been conducted to ensure such technology will be able to blend into our current transport system, with “One-North hosting” the first public road testing for this AV technology on “1st January 2015”.

All about me.

Dear Professor Brad,

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself and to let you know more about me for starters. My name is Yong Kah Teck Sam or you can address me as Sam. My hobby now is weightlifting, I used to do competitive running but due to medical reasons I’ve stopped running.

I graduated from Republic Polytechnic with a diploma in Green Building Management which also helped to develop my interest and curiosity as to how can we help improve Singapore buildings to be more energy efficient. My aim is to become a polytechnic lecturer, as my interest in teaching started off from peer to peer teaching in school, which further deepened during my national service days. As I strongly believe knowledge is meant to be shared, not stored.

During national service, my vocation was an infantry drill sergeant. I was assigned to basic military training school located offshore at Pulau Tekong island. As a military instructor in the training school, we had to teach and be patient with the new recruits as they embark on a new journey in the army. Hence, it developed my interest in teaching people and passing down my knowledge to the later generation.

I believe my strength in communication is willing to listen and accept what people say and giving feedback to ideas of what they’ve presented to me. As I believe communication is a two-way traffic, a listener and a speaker. But more often people like to be the speaker rather then listen to what others have to offer. My weakness in communication is writing, putting my thoughts into sentence structure. I need assistance in improving my English language and how to convey myself properly in writing.

My goals for this communication module are to improve my writing skills and learn how to convey myself smoothly in public speaking. Speaking within groups is easy but to express yourself in front of a crowd and putting your thoughts into words in front of them is not.

I hope with your guidance in this module, I’m able to gain more knowledge and exposure in writing.

Yours sincerely,

Sam Yong