Handling the FSKTM Booth At the ASPer (Asasi Sains Pertanian) Towards Industry 4.0 Education Fair

7 February 2017 (Thursday)

On duty to man the faculty booth at the ASPer Towards Industry 4.0 event. This event was primarily aimed at the final semester Asasi Pertanian (UPM Matriculation) students, but was also opened to all secondary school leavers to promote the programmes which UPM offer. It was held at UPM's Main Hall (PKKSSAAS) from 8 am - 5 pm. All sixteen faculties took part, exhibiting and also rallying for their very own program. ASPer students are typically top students, hand-selected by UPM through their mock SPM results to undergo a shorter matriculation program compared to their peers attending the KPM Matriculation program (the Fast Track program is only for 8 months whereas KPM Matriculation can be up to 2 years prior to starting their degree courses). 

There was a big turn up at the event, and having several students to help out at the booth was definitely a blessing. For the Multimedia Department, we had brought several of our students' FYP projects and let the visitors played around with the Virtual Reality world, or tried out the Augmented Reality apps. Quite a few students had finalized their option to apply for our Bachelor of Computer Science programs, especially Software Engineering. As an added information, FSKTM offers Bachelor of Computer Science with three majors - Multimedia, Computer Network and Computer System, as well as Bachelor of Software Engineering.

First Meeting for the InnoHub Virtual Training for PWD Project

1 February 2017 (Wednesday)

Our first meeting for this project was held today at the UPM's Golf Club. All board members, Mr. Fedderus, Dr. Nor Wahiza, Mrs. Nor Aini and myself were there. We were joined by Mr. Zakir Jaafar, CEO of Commercialization, Putra Science Park, UPM, who gave us excellent pointers and ran us through the process commercialization via InnoHub. This is a start to a much exciting and promising beginnings!

Hectic!

28 January 2017 (Saturday)

Chaotic week. Things achieved within the past weeks:

1. FRGS Grant submission

2. Geran Putra Siswazah Grant submission

3. CHIUXID paper on Gesture Sets

4. CHIUXID paper on Loose to Tight Corporation Strategy in Teaching HCI

5. Grant submission to another cultural and music program 

6. Proof reading students articles to be submitted to our yearly HCI Postgraduate Students' Colloquium

Hectic!

Results of InnoHub Grant on Virtual Training for People With Disabilities Empowerment

26 January 2017 (Thursday)

Received the results of our InnoHub grant submitted from the recent cycle today - grant application is ACCEPTED! Alhamdulillah, this means that the Virtual Training for PWD can be carried out pronto. Sincerest thanks to Dr. Nor Wahiza and team for including me in the team - I humbly look forward to work forward together on this project.

This means that the basic training kit which has been copyrighted will be pushed to the next level - commercialization. However, may steps will have to be carried out prior to that, which includes carrying out the market validation. Next meeting which will discuss the next steps will be held when everyone comes back post-Chinese New Year holiday with the rest of the team members from Institut Pengajian Sains Sosial (IPSAS), where I am also an associate researcher there. The grant is expected to last until end of 2017. Since the total of the grant in RM is quite modest, so we might have to further apply the UPM's Product Promotion grant within the next year to see that the project carries through. Can't wait to get started on this benefit. May it benefit those in need. Link to Geran Dana Promosi Produk UPM can be found here.

Teaching Files Organization Workshop

25 January 2017 (Wednesday)

A file which is completely organized with no ISO document missing signifies the end of a semester, long after the last student has left the compound, home-bound. As academics, we need to mark,  key in marks, present, justify and sometime argue the results of the semester e.g. why so  and so student receive such and such grades. As UPM rigidly enforces the ISO 9001:2008 standard, each case is documented and transparent, albeit it being another additional step for the academics to sit and sift through piles of documents in this twice a year workshop. Thanks for those who sponsored the Nasi Lemak and Kuih Keria Gula Melaka to keep our momentum going. Just what we needed!

Co-Creation Workshop

19 January 2017 (Thursday)

A group of us from the Multimedia Department went on this half day workshop at the UiTM Sungai Buloh Campus (Medical and Dentistry). We were looking forward to meet up with our collaborators, Prof. Dr. Zamrin Dimon and his team of surgeons, and also our partners from the Industrial Design Department, Faculty of Design and Architecture UPM to see where three fields (medical, design and computer science) and merge together to benefit others. 

Associate Professor Dr. Rahmita Wirza is already a familiar name in this type of research and this was some other new project she is keen on working on. I am grateful that she had been generous in extending the invitation to me regarding this workshop as she thought I might wanted to join in on the mock prototyping session because of my HCI background. Indeed, I had a great time that afternoon, and I learned something new too. 

My appreciation for doctors and surgeons, in particular has gone up several notches too, by understanding the problems they face daily with some of the current medical devices they are using (which we are invited to solve - thus, the purpose of this workshop). Nevertheless, their invitation to see how the devices work first hand, in an operating theatre, on a living patient, had to be turned down by me. Youtube is enough for me to look at heart bypass surgeries, thank you very much.

Visit to the Virtual Reality Convention, Multimedia University, Cyberjaya

16 January 2017 (Monday)

A group of staff from the Multimedia Department at FSKTM UPM went on a visit to attend the Virtual Reality Convention held at MMU, Cyberjaya. We were interested to see several new VR technologies which were on exhibits from various VR companies who took part showcasing their products. We also managed to attend a VR seminar and interacted with the VR projects (systems / games) from MMU students which were on display. Hope to secure some money from the faculty to get our VR equipments up-to-date. We also managed to talk with several companies such as VR Lab, Integrasi Erat, Streamline Studios and a few more regarding the possibility of sending our undergraduate students to do their internship there, as well as staff to do their Industrial Attachment there too.

Final Year Project Completion

13 January 2017 (Friday)

My heartiest congratulations go to all three of my Final Year Project students on the completion of their project presentations and these. It has been a hard and treacherous semester for them (and me too). Although there are still some areas to be improved regarding the project, it has been a good learning experience for them, and also a chance for them to take on new programming skills. Hopefully, this will serve them well when they start working after their graduation. As they say, 'It's not the destination that matters, but the journey to get there'.

As your former supervisor, I wish all the best to Syahirah 'Atikah Syahrin, Nur Athirah Hassan Basri and Chan Zhen Yong with your future undertakings!!!

Teaching Schedule Is Out

12 January 2017 (Thursday)

Teaching schedule for Semester II 2016/17 has been finalized. Looks like I'll be teaching SKM4311 (Animation for Multimedia Production) and SKM3300 (Multimedia Application Development). The former is an elective course, intended for Seniors (final year) undergraduate students undertaking Multimedia major and following the Games stream, and the latter is a core subject for third year Human Development and Information Technology students. Both will require lab sessions, and overall, I am looking at 8 hours of teaching a week. This is by far the most I have been assigned to teaching (UPM is a Research University, afterall), but budget cut has stated that the Uni will no longer pay for lab instructors, but will be taught by lecturers instead. Time to buckle up!

Quality Award Day

Our Faculty held the Quality Day on 11 January 2017. The Q-Day is a day where awards are handed out to all deserving members of FSKTM on their excellent performance the year prior. Some of the awards include, Best Teaching Award, Highest Grant, Highest Number of Publications, etc. The Multimedia Department bagged the Most Active in Industrial Relations and Community Work Award. Well done, team!

Supervision: Semesterly Lunch Date, Our Tradition

We had our semesterly lunch yesterday (10/1/2017) afternoon at Johnny's in IOI City Mall. It was nice to gather all five of my postgraduate research students together in one setting. It was extremely pleasant to see Bella again after she had delivered her baby boy, Syabil and also her husband who joined us at the lunch. Syabil is only a month old, such a cutie! Semesterly lunch is definitely a nice tradition worth keeping :)

Supervision: Master Presentations

On Tuesday (10/1/2017), three of my Master students presented their works to their assessors and myself. First up was Nametso, who presented her proposal on her Gesture-based Virtual Piano. Nametso needs to add a few more things on her LR, but more importantly, she needs to start developing, at least to get a working prototype done, so she can actually understand and solve the issues at hand. She has one more semester to complete this (Project for Master by coursework in UPM typically takes two semesters - one semester is for coming up with the proposal and the next semester is for actual development and dissertation writing).

Later in the afternoon, Bella presented her proposal, which was also her 1-year defense. Bella is currently away on maternity leave, and had only came in that afternoon for the presentation. She needs to get her hands dirty and starts working on her proof-of-concept as soon as she gets back in the lab in a few weeks' time.

Amy's turn followed after. Amy's presented her Literature Review. Glad that the assessors found that her project seemed interesting and they were happy with her materials. Alhamdulillah, a step in the right direction.

Teaching: Last Paper

Invigilated my own paper (SKM4311) last Sunday afternoon (8 January 2017). Last paper of the semester for me, last paper EVER for them. These final year students are done with their formal education, as they part ways to their respective industrial placement for the next semester before graduating in October. Well done students of Bachelor Computer Science (Majoring in Multimedia) Cohort 2013/14. It was a pleasure teaching you guys (three subjects in total). See (some of) you in your ties and shirts next semester at your internship companies!

PhD Students Presentation

6 January 2017 (Friday)

Two of the students whom I co-supervised presented their semester progress report. Syura and Faiz are in their fourth semester of their PhDs, under the main supervision of Dr. Azrul.

Teaching: Eleventh Hour, Well, Almost

Invigilating exam today. Sorry, crossed that, TONIGHT. My very own Creative Design Elements paper, which started at 8.30 p.m. and ended at 10.30 p.m. Phew... it was a LONGGGG night. I even made a mistake of announcing in the hall that there was only 15 minutes left on the clock left at 9.45 p.m., which the students all gasped in horror. I was then corrected by my co-worker stating the exam was not scheduled to finish at 10 p.m., but 10.30 p.m., so the students (and me) still had another 45 more minutes to go. Haha. Seeing that we already got to work at 8 a.m. in the morning, and only to clock out at 11 p.m. (tidying up after the exam), it was a rather justified error on my part. Nevertheless, we all survived to the eleventh hour. I just hope these students didn't start revising on the eleventh hour - I had not designed this to be an easy paper :)