Been busy these past few days, relaxing only by going for the cross-realm battlegrounds in WoW. At least honor farming is much easier now… not to mention fun ;)
Saw this headlines today on Star Online.
Lol… the transport minister caught in a traffic jam had to defer a meeting with MAS. At least he didn’t use the ‘police escort’ privilege that many ministers (imo) abuse. Should at least light a bulb in his head that our KL’s traffic system is kinda lacking and would need improvements :) *cough* Federal highway *cough*
Ironic at it’s best.
It’s worrying me. 4 weeks into the semester and the circuit has not been built yet. Graeme sort of set us the pace by asking us to play around and familiarise ourselves with the components, but I feel the time PLAYING around with the components is a bit too… scary. Anyway, we decided to understand how the components work by the end of this week, and hopefully get a circuit up and running by the end of next. We also decided to use the simplest (and most device intensive, i.e, expensive) circuit for the time being. After getting a working circuit, we could then do a major overhaul on reducing the components needed, and crack our heads on the software part. Drawback of a simple circuit: Blardy hard to write software code.
After burning two 7-segment displays, I got the displays to count up by using the PIC to control the output. We also suspect the ADC is also fried. ^_^” Well, this goes without saying since we just slapped on the voltages and the inputs without reading through the datasheet properly first. Gonna test the ADC again tomorrow. Hope it works.
Till next time.
Fell sick yesterday. Actually, it was on Tuesday night that I felt unwell. Caught a cold i think. Lucky I had Mei Yen around to help me cook porridge and get medicine for me.
Design lab is going on well, I think. Not much progress, but we’ve learnt how to program the microcontroller. All that’s left is to wire up the sensor to the ADC, and the BCD to the display. After that we can wire it up to the microcontroller. I suggested that we program the PIC in conjunction with the wiring up so we would know how the data will move. A lot of minor things that we have to take into consideration since they all add up to one big problem later if we don’t.
Luckily for me, my laptop has a serial port. The microprocessor programmer needs to interface with the comp through a serial port, and I was worried that I can’t work from home. At least now I know I can bring my laptop over to the labs, program stuff, and bring it back home to tweak around with when the lab closes. The programming of the microcontroller can be done using a Jaycar programming kit and a computer with MPLAB. MPLAB is a free software, downloadable from http://www.microchip.com/ . Just look up MPLAB IDE and it should direct you to a list of possible links. It should be the first link. They also provide you with guides on how to use MPLAB. The programming is very low level though, something along the lines of VHDL, so be prepared to change your mindset if you’re a high level language programmer. :)
Got my design lab sepcifications yesterday. My project partners are Khor and Daniel. A pretty interesting project that we’ve been allocated to, the Digital Thermometer, which converts Analogue sensing of temperatures and converts it into digital values to be displayed on two 7-segment displays.
An online logbook has been set up by Khor, and for those who would like to keep track of what we are doing, visit http://dl22a.blogspot.com/Â :)
I might post up a personal logbook of my own on this blog, probably not a very detailed one, but it should contain those breakthroughs and progress that we make.
Till next time…
Meh… Holidays keeps a person busy doesn’t it. :) Well, time to dust off my blog and at least update what have I been doing the past few weeks.
To start it off, my results were OK… Not very good, but hey… I passed! At least this year, my birthday wasn’t celebrated in tears. Step by step as they say, I’ll work towards a better result this semester.
Didn’t do much during the holidays… Mei Yen shifted in with me since she would be graduating at the end of this year, which makes for a slightly more cramped apartment. It’s ok though… I don’t think I’ll be seeing her for the next year or so! We went skiing on the last few days of the holidays. She went with her friends, I went with Sian Siew, Sian Thoe and Ryan. We went in 2 seperate groups since that was the idea at first; although my gf’s group went on the same day and stayed at the same accomodation.
Skiing is sooooo fun. I should be thankful that I did rollerblading before. On the first day I was already up the training hill, and on the second day I went all the way up the summit. Man it’s soooo fun. I had bruises on my shin though. The tongue of the boots weren’t padded that well imo. Either that or they’re really old. Kekeke… I can proudly say that I had the least falls. My butt still hurts though from the falls that I did have. Only Sian Thoe went up with me all the way to the summit. Sian Siew and Ryan weren’t confident, so we didn’t want to force them to go. Lazy to post up the pics though :P There’re quite a few nice ones that we took.
Monday was a PAIN for me. Going for classes is ok. The problem is, my whole damn body ACHED. Lucky I could concentrate well in class though. No problem there. Talking about classes and stuff. Lucky I didn’t get to overload this semester. The introductary lectures were enough to give me white hair and an increase in blood pressure. It’s sooo heavy this semester! I vowed to do well this semester though, so gotta get cracking ASAP.
About the pics for the ski trip… Next time lar. :P
Went to Kayu at Box Hill today. Food was authentically great, but too bad the portion wasn’t true to the Kayu’s spirit o___O In Melbourne all the food portion comes in one size: Large. Kayu actually shrank the portion: Medium. Ah well, at least it’s good Malaysian food. Lazy to put up the pics I took with Sian Siew and the 2 hardo-geis *LoL* Must make a vow to put them up next time. :D
Kk… Got my camera battery charger. I have started snapping some photos here and there, but lazy to put up :D Will get to it soon I hope.
What a relief… exams over, I can finally let go of the stress and relax a bit. Started World of Warcraft again, so to my WoW buddies out there, I started a hunter on Detheroc. Name? Clickz. Clicks was taken. *sigh* Eos was taken too. Sounded quite cool for a NE :D It’s a Greek deity for the dawn. Artemis would be better since she’s the goddess of the hunt. Ah well… Clickz will do :D See if I can take some screenies for you guys to see.
Well, this means my winter won’t be boring :) Till next time…
Man… I hope i don’t get beaten up the next time I see them >< Anyway, it’s never too late! Happy birthday Audrey and Jonie!!
Ok… before the blows start falling, I DID remember. But I forgot to post it up (or sms/call – SORRY JO). Been busy with the house moving and lack of internet (notice the number of days between the last 2 posts) and not to mention exams.
Anywayz, wish you 2 a happy belated birthday, and hope you guys enjoy being 22! (yes, I had to rub it in) :D
Feels like I just came out of a jungle. Life without the internet was hard since I have to trudge to uni to check my mails and keep up with things. Sian Siew’s first message once I finally get to log in:-
| 6/15/2006 |
|
10:06:39 PM |
|
sian siew |
|
KaH wAi | Clicks in library |
|
hallo |
| 6/15/2006 |
|
10:06:47 PM |
|
sian siew |
|
KaH wAi | Clicks in library |
|
welcum to the internet |
Now that my internet is up and running, I can finally come back to the pace of going through my stuff in the comforts of my own home. I would like to complain about the “not up to standard speed” and the “minimal download quota”, but what can I say? ADSL1 with 1.5Mbps and 20Gb total d/l limit a month isn’t gonna kill me, but it does well in retarding my usual download spree. *cry* Oh how much I miss my old 24Mbps line with 40Gb download limit and with hampsters to boot! Que sera sera…My girlfriend has been complaining about my camera lately. She wants to take lots of photos as memorablia but stupid me leaving my camera battery charger back home in Malaysia. D’oh. With a camera I bet my blog will look livelier too. Kinda drab without pictures to colour the scene. I might go get a charger after my exams and finally start snapping away :D
Speaking about exams, I’ve got 2 more gruelling papers left. They pale in comparison with the one I had. The second paper that I had was a nightmare. DON’T ASK. I’m seriously praying that my efforts the whole semester will pull me through this subject. *sigh*
Check out Sian Siew’s blog on an interesting ringtone that only some people can hear. I can hear it :P Can you?
Till next time :D
OMFG. MY Eng Analysis B ASSIGNMENT 2 IS MISSING. KNNCCB. I discussed the assignment with Robert and I can clearly remember handing it up right after him. He then gets full marks but mine is considered “not handed in”. WTF!?!? Robert getting back his assignment means my assignment getting misplaced is through NO FAULT OF MINE. I worked sooo hard on it to make up for the first assignment (which, unfortunately, had been labeled ‘collusion’) I can’t believe it. 5 marks. Even then it’s the effort that was put in that is so heartbreaking. I stayed up till 3am doing up the report well, then spending the whole of the next day going through it again. This is certainly not justified as I’m not getting the marks I deserve. Even talking to the lecturer directly didn’t help. He was sympathetic, but not helpful at all. He said they would try looking for it, but I should not put hope in them finding it. He then asked me if I kept a copy of the assignment. WHO THE HELL KEEPS A COPY OF THIER ASSIGNMENT UNLESS IT’S A SOFT COPY????? The only other option is to look out for that draft of the assignment that I did and rewrite the damn thing. Which I almost have no hope of finding since I shifted already. Argh… The anger and disappointment.
