NYAWA '18 Second Meet Up

20 April 2018 - Attended the 2nd NYAWA'18 upon chance this afternoon, as prompted by Dr. Haniff Bahrin of UKM, who had worked together with me on a NYAWA '16 project. This year, we are entering again, proposing something related to motion on the land and sensors in the sky, to match this year's title 'From Earth to Sky'. Around twenty people presented their ideas that afternoon, and all being considered thoroughly by Mr. Nasir, the curator. Proud to mention that there were a very number of turn up from FSKTM this year, particularly from the CGV2 group. Hopefully all the projects get the greenlight from the curator.

Such exciting projects lie ahead. Will keep this space posted as the project progresses.

Hard At Work Understanding Hard Concepts

Here are some photos that could make any lecturer's heart melt. SKM4212 (Audio Video Digitization) is not known to be an easy subject. The concepts of digital audio, in particular, is challenging to digest, at best.Students typically struggle as they could not for the life of them visualize what is going on with these sound signals. Last lesson was particularly tough, when the concepts of Waveform, Spectrum and Spectrogram were discussed. However, towards the end of the lesson, this was spotted.

Yup,  a student helping a fellow student on this matter. Digitally, no less.

This made me smile all the way back to my office.

SKM2300 Assignment 1 (Video) Presentation

16 April 2018 - SKM2300 students presented their 1st assignment to the class. The students were asked to produce movie parody of 2 - 3 minutes of the movie teaser or a certain scene of the movie. All group members must appear in the short movie. If it is a parody of non-English movie, they must add subtitles.In the end they had to submit a CD per group containing the recorded raw clips and all other materials used for the final video, the final edited video and the original video (to be compared with the parody produced). The parodies included scenes from well-known films such as Frozen, Harry Potter, Munafik, The Conjuring, Goblin and Zootopia.

Note: SKM2300 is an introductory class to Multimedia, offered to non-computing students. This semester's students are from the Biotechnology students.

Congratulations to Ong Beng Liang on Successfully Passing His Viva Voce

17 April 2018 - Congratulations to Ong Beng Liang, who passed his Master viva last Tuesday with minor correction. His thesis is entitled "Using Continuous Line Bezel Correction with Rotatable Orientation In Collaborative Activities on the Multi-mobile System". The viva was held at Bilik Viva 3, School of Graduate Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia. Ong's examiners were Prof. Dr. Rahmita Wirza (Internal - UPM) and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Murni Mahmud (External - IIUM) with Assoc. Prof. Dr. Fatimah Khalid as the Chairperson.

Deep Learning Technology Talk

This is a throwback.

9 February 2018 - Several faculty members went on the Deep Learning Technology Short Course held at MaGIC Cyberjaya (Malaysian Global and Innovation Centre). Tarun Sukhani was invivted as the speaker, and the materials lightly covered for the day included a preview to Artificial Neural Networks, Convolutional Neural Networks, Recurrent Neural Networks, and Self-Organizing Maps.

Putra Future Clasroom Project

Our GridMode project was selected to be one of the collaborating researchers for the Putra Future Classroom project. Putra Future Classroom is  a centre of reference for best technology integrators in teaching and learning for all parties, both locally and internationally. Putra Future Classroom uses the latest teaching and learning approaches which are interactive and blended and use virtual realities, internet of things, data analytics and artificial intelligence. It will serve as a launching and test pad of a 21st century classroom or lecture room sample that will always adapt changes in line with its goals. On the 18 February 2018, UPM's Vice Chancellor, Prof. Dr. Aini Ideris held a Soft Launch of PFC, while on the 22 February 2018, a live broadcast from PFC to UPM’s Dewan Besar was held during Vice Chancellor Yearly Address 2018.

It is such an honour to be part of this massive project. Many thanks to Prof. Dr. Rahmita Wirza for opening up the channel to collaborate with Assoc. Prof. Dr Samsilah Roslan (Putra Sains Park) and also Dr. Mas Nida Md. Khamberi on this PFC project. Thanks also to my two Master students, Ong Beng Liang and Teo Rhun Ming who were the core researchers on this project.

Here are some pics of the discussions and shootings and rehearsals leading up to the day.

Here is the official video of the launched PFC. My group's project (GridMode), can be viewed at 0:19 to 0:32.

Monthly Group Supervision - March 2018

Supervision is now conducted at two levels: (1) weekly, personal meetings and (2) monthly, group meeting. In the group meeting, everyone is expected to attend and it opens up opportunities for everyone to re-cap their milestones as well as a chance to socialize with the group mates.

Last 16 March 2018, the second group meeting of the semester was had where Master student Ong Beng Liang presented his work. The presentation was two fold, to act as a pre-viva practice session for Ong who had just submitted his thesis in February, and also as an introduction to his work for the newer students who joined my supervision. In general, Ong needs to improve on his presentation skills and amendment is advised for slides (the content seemed too light and general to pass off as a viva slide. Fortunately, he has no viva date set yet, so he has time to fix it.

 After a light presentation and some Q&A, the group meeting ended with some potluck food. Next meeting is scheduled for mid April 2018, where Teo is due to present his slides.