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!