day 23

Date: 6.8.08

Venue: 4P classroom

Members: Jia Jie, Jing Yuan, Charles, Yi Wen

Ok today we met in class to do 3 things. 1. finalize the S-L publication 2. Finish the lung 3. do report

Most of the publication was done by me le. So, the only thing left was for Mrs Lim to vet.

we started on the lung again. everything else was the same. The only difference was the new stick-in mechanism that we came up with. We used a bag for the entrance of the hole to the lung. Upon the completion, we tested it out and it worked. It was a lot easier to feel the balloon now, since our hands are now in direct contact. the only problem was that we couldn’t seal the hole completely. Thus, there was still a small leakage of air, but thats not of a problem since we could still feel the expansion of the balloon.

Charles was doing the report.

Mrs Lim came in after a while and she vetted our publication article. She also helped us to choose some of the photos that we were going to use for the publication. We then took some photos with our models.

Ok Thats all for today

Yi Wen

day 22

date: 5/ 8 /2008

Members Present: Charles, Yi Wen, Jia Jie, Jing Yuan

Venue: SSVH

Today, was the day of truth. we were going down to SSVH to test our products, namely the circulatory system model, and the lung mechanism model. Of course we had to go down to SSVH during school hours since we would be too late if we went after school. (all the kids would have left).

So, we met Mrs LIm at staffroom 3 and took bus 156 down to SSVH. Upon reaching, we met with Ms Juwita and she brought us to the classroom to test it out. Once again, with the help of the teacher of the class, we tested the lung model. After the test, 2 conclusions were made.

For this model, the balloon did not inflate as much as compared to the model using the rubber glove. (this model used the disposable gloves). Therefore, the blind kid was unable to feel the change in size of balloon as compared to the previous times. This was a comment made by the teacher in charge.

Secondly, the glove, as said in the previous entry, was made of very lousy material. Therefore, just as we expected, it tore, and at the same time destroying the pressure difference between the inside and the outside.

The circulatory system also received its own comments. Firstly, they recommended that we indicate the direction of blood flow. Secondly, we should add a legend to it so that the students can differentiate between the arteries and veins.

Disappointed with our failure, we left. Along the way home, Jing Yuan, our of anger, made the hole in the glove bigger. Jia had a brainwave. He suggested that we could let the students stick their hands into the hole, and tighten the hole using string or other materials, and creating a pressure difference. We tested it with the torn glove and it worked.

We decided to go back and redo the thing, with the new type of mechanism.

Thats all!

Yi Wen

day 21

Date: 30.7.08

venue: 4P classroom

members: jia jie, jing yuan, yi wen, charles.

Okay….

Today, we were to do the lungs again. since we have been failing for the past 1 thousand, 7 hundred and sixty four times. Ok.

So we met in 4P (as usual… WHY DO I HAVE TO CLIMB UP TO THEIR CLASS ALL THE TIME?!?!). And started. zzzz… i hate repeating the same old process over and over again, so i shall summarize. Firstly, we used the old bottle instead of the new one. Coz the old one only has holes on top and at the bottom, the new one has top bottom and side. So jing felt that wasn’t good. Secondly, we inserted the windpipe again. Thirdly, we used disposable gloves this time coz they were big and can fit bigger hands. Fourthly, we did and did.

Finally, we were done Yay. And upon testing it worked. So jing yuan got us to paint and draw a picture of the rib cage on the front of the model. However, there was one problem. the gloves were made of lousy material and tore easily. There was one tear and we mended it with tape.

ZZZ.. sorry for this boring entry.

Yi Wen

Day 20

Date: 29 July 2008

Members present: Jia JIe, Yi Wen , JIng Yuan

Venue outside staffrooms second floor.

Okay

Today, we were to do the lungs again. since we have been failing for the past 1 thousand, 7 hundred and sixty three times. Anyway, we met outside staffrooms for to build the lungs. Firstly, we realised that we had no more bubble tea straws. So, while Jing Yuan was at morrison meeting, I walked all the way to the bubble tea shop to get straws. When I came back, Jing Yuan was still not done, therefore, me and Jia just sat there and played handphone games.

When jing yuan was finally done, we started. We had to rebuild the wind pipe and the lungs, since the old one seemed to have some hole in it and air was escaping. So after sticking and sticking, we managed to build a new one. Next, we used Zip lock bag material to stick be used for the cover and the place where the lung and windpipes were supposed to be. After sticking, we poked a hold and inserted it in.

Next was the new “glove”. this time we decided to try using a bag to as the “glove” as it is easier to put your hand in and out. So, we used another zip lock bag (zip lock bags are good!) for it. After attaching it, we were left with the diaphragm. So, the same as always, use a zip lock bag for it (zip lock bags are the best!). Ok. when we were finally done. we tested it out.

WE FAILED and i don’t feel like talking about it. ok nvm. Firstly the “glove” gets inflated instead of the Lungs. Secondly, there was some leakage of air and we couldn’t find hole. Therefore, disappointed, we left for home.

Bye

Yi Wen

Day 19

Date: 25/7/08

Members present: Yi Wen, Jia Jie, Charles (Jng Yuan @ Dramafeste)

Venue: 4H classroom, auditorium.

HI guys.

Ok today, we were supposed to do the circulatory system again since the previous ones failed. Therefore, we met at my class first. However, there was a meeting for S-L groups before that at the auditorium, so basically we just waited around before going for the meeting. however, while waiting around, Jia jie received a call to go and try out some RE group’s shoe pad. and somehow, me and charles got dragged along. upon reaching the bio lab(where Jia was supposed to go and try the shoe pad), i looked at the list of names and by chance, found charles’ name there. Haha, so it turned out that Jia and Charles had to wear some uncomfortable shoe pad thingy with all sorts of funny things used to reduce moisture and give it a nice smell.

Okay on to the S-L lecture. What was discussed was mainly about the RE-Sl publication that the school was going to do, therefore, we were supposed to do some write up about our RE project and burn it together with pictures into a CD. The template and stuff is on asknlearn. Next, there is this RJ guy who came to tell us about him extending his service and learning beyond secondary school and he continued it in RJC. (somehow, i felt as if he was just promoting his event happening on sunday). Anyway, after the lecture we saw Mrs Lim for a short while before heading back to class. In class, me and Jia Jie started to draw a shape of a human on a piece of card board. ( we got the card board from dismantling a A4 cardboard box found in my class- shows how environmentally friendly we are, using all recycled materials) XD. Anyway soon after we were called to go and meet Mrs Lim outside the staff room.

We went there and met both charles and Mrs Lim. We discussed about our progress so far, about the S-L publication write-up, the report and about going down to SSVH for a lesson in wk 6. Yea, so after the meeting, we went back to class and started to cut up the cardboard in to the human shape. Armed with a pen knife each, we started sawing and stabbing the cardboard until we finally finished cutting it up. Charles left shortly after because he had to meet Mr Chong for something and me and Jia continued. We pasted the twine first and it was super easy since twine does not curl up like nylon. Oh sorry, we pasted the heart first. Then after that we pasted the nylon. When we were done, Jia said that the head looked too empty, therefore, we decided to paste a brain there. Yay, we were done. Then i left the human thing with Jing Yuan in the drama room while i went for training. After training i took it home -.-

kk dats all

Yi Wen

day 18

Date: 22.07.08

Members present: Jia Jie, Yi Wen

Venue: 2nd floor admin block, outside staffrooms.

Hies.

Today, after i had cut up the board on the 17 of july, We decided to finish up the circulatory system on this new board since it was easy to do. Therefore, i brought the board and materials to school.

Me and Jia Jie were to meet after school at 4P classroom, however, as i had missed a history test in week 3, I was supposed to take the test after school and thus the meeting was delayed. When the test finally ended, we could no longer do it in class since it has been locked by the security guard.

Thus, we chose the venue as outside the staff rooms since there were tables there to use. So we started the same process all over again, add the glue, position the string, use the tape to hold down the string. However, things did not go the way that we expected. Somehow, styrofoam does not seem to like glue and tape, therefore, the tape kept coming loose and the string kept bouncing up (since it was nylon and nylon keeps curling up). Despite all attempts that we used, like using larger tape, wrapping the nylon in many layers, the glue did not stick and the nylon continued to bounce up.

We declared this attempt as a failure. We took out all the string and tape and smashed the board up. Then we chucked it all in a bin.

zz End of meeting

Byes.

Yi Wen

day 17

date: 17.7.08

venue: Junior Block 3rd floor

Members present: Yi wen , Jing Yuan, Jia Jie had to go for some prayers, charles at APCG

Hies

Today, we had another meeting, supposedly to modify/ make a new prototype from the old ones which we realised were not as good after testing them out yesterday. We were to meet in school at 10, and this time, I was on time. XD.

First, Jing Yuan told me to go and get the materials that he left in 2H classroom yesterday, so i went there, and dragged the entire pile of junk all the way to the junior block 3rd floor. And guess what i discovered, Jing Yuan was practicising for his drama feste all the way until 2 pm…. -.- So he told me to start doing with Jia Jie first. But guess what, Jia jie wasn’t there and when I called him, he said that he had to go to the temple for some prayer thing, which leaves me all on my own.

Feeling bored, I just stayed and watched the rehearsal and during the parts when i had nothing to do, I went to cut up the bottle that was going to be used as our new lung model. ya ya ya.. So the hours went by with nothing done apart from the cut up bottle. Finally it was 2 pm, and Jing Yuan wasn’t done! There was still some discussion going on. So we finally got started at around 3 pm. All we did was to attach the balloon and a new plastic sheet onto the new bottle. We also decided that we should use a plastic to be used as the glove as it is quite difficult for the blind to put on the glove. Using a plastic will simplify the process a lot. Soon, it was 4 and Jing said that he had to leave for his tuition at Katong.

So we dragged everything up bus 13. This time, we didn’t get guai lanned since the boards are now cut up. However, I was left standing in the bus for 80% of the journey coz there wasn’t enough space for me to put the boards while Jing Yuan was in dreamland with his eyes closed.

Oh ya, and I have already cut up one of the boards into a human shape. just that it doesn’t have hands since one hand broke off when i was cutting it and i decided to cut off the other one. XD

ok. thats all

Yi Wen

day 16

yo

Date: 16.7.08

Members present: Yi Wen and Jing Yuan, Charles at APCG, Jia Jie is down with flu.

Venue school and SSVH

Today, we were to go down to SSVH to show them what we have done so far. If you don’t know what we have done, heres a quick recap. First, the lung like thing, with an attached glove for the kids to feel. Second, the enormous board with the circulatory system on it that we just finished yesterday. So the original meeting time was 9.30. But apparently, i left my house at 9.30.. and so i arrived at 10.30 which was…. Nevermind.

So we dragged the huge thing all the way to the bus stop and waited for the bus 156 to come. Erm. to give you a rough idea of how big the board is, it is taller than me and its width is about the length my arms spread out. Okay. So when the bus finally came, as we dragged, the board up, the bus driver “guai lanned”. But we “guai lanned” him back. and Miraculously, we managed to drag it up, luckily there weren’t much people on the bus. When we finally reached, we miraculously managed to drag it down the bus and started up the hill to SSVH. Tell you a secret, I felt like a kite coz the wind was so…. strong. and the board was practically pulling me away. And guess what, jing yuan was there taking photos instead of helping his poor group mate.

Anyway, when we finally reached SSVH, we showed ms juwita our stuff. erm.. im not sure whether she was impressed, but she took us to the classes to show the teachers our “lungs”. We tested out the “lungs” on some of the visually handicapped children there and everything seemed okay except for one thing. The glove was too SMALL!. every single one of them was unable to stick his hand in properly. I guess we have to use better gloves the next time round. one of the teachers also commented that we should simplify our circulatory system board since being too complex will confuse the students. (jia and me feel disappointed. Oops jia wasn’t there). Another suggested that we use thicker strings instead of rafia coz its abit hard to feel. So. looks like our prototypes were quite fail. So now, we are to redo both the lungs and the circulatory board.

And guess what, jing yuan told me to drag that enormous thing back down the hill and back to RI!!! erm.. I had the privilege to feel like a kite again and jing yuan once again was happily taking photos of the kite(ME). And once again, as expected, we got guai lan-ed by another bus driver. Finally, when we got back, we left the board in class and went for lunch. When we came back i tore out the human from the board and cut the board into four pieces (jing yuan said not to get a new board as he wants to save the environment). -.-

Dats all from me XD

Bye bye

Yi Wen

day 15

Date: 15/7/08

Members Present: Tan Jing Yuan, Pang Yi Wen, Long Jia Jie

Venue: Raja Block foyer.

Still feeling emo from the trip.

But today, we met up to finish up our circulatory system.

Me and Jia arrived in school 1 hr late and somehow jing yuan had already managed to drag the entire board to the english drama room. He was practicing for his drama feste thingy. So me and Jia were actually wasting time for the first one hour doing nothing. So to say, we wasted about 2 hrs. Anyway, when we finally got started, we first got a picture of the circulatory system from the internet. Then we brought the board to the Raja Block foyer and started gluing nylon strings to it. We had red nylon strings, so it was to be used for the arteries. It was a very tough process. Coz you sort of gets pissed at the way the string keeps curling up. So after putting the glue, we had to secure the nylon to the board using tape. (we will take out the tape after the glue dries). While we were halfway through, Chu Yong (a random person) kindly got his friends to buy lunch from S-11 for us. After gluing most of the arteries, we played a game of bridge (don’t bother asking XD) while waiting for lunch to come.

Lunch was chicken rice -.- A very normal food. But perhaps a good change since we haven’t been eating Singapore’s chicken rice for a week already. When we were done, we proceeded to the the veins.

The veins were ten times easier coz we used rafia string and they bended very easily. So we were done. For the heart, we tried to use balloon, but apparently it was quite hard, so we used a plastic bag instead. We cut it into an “oval shape’ and pasted it there.

When we were done, we left it with Chu Yong who will pass it to Jing Yuan for us. YES, only me and Jia did everything. Apparently Jing Yuan was busy with drama feste and APCG dance stuff. So he didn’t contribute anything apart from eye power.

THATS ALL!

IM STILL EMO!

YI WEN

Day 15

Date: 2.7.08

venue: Physics Lab

members: Yi Wen, Jing Yuan, Jia Jie, Charles (left for swimming)

Hi.

Today, Jing Yuan had decided for us to build the circulatory system for the blind. The idea was from me. we would use a board, and paste wires and other things on it to form the veins, the arteries, the capillaries, etc. Before going down to the physics lab to start work, we met Mrs Lim at staff room 3 to collect some items as well as for some briefing. After collecting our items, we headed to the physics lab.

On the way, Jing Yuan announced that he had decided to stop doing the skeletal system because it was too difficult for us with just paper mache. With that, he picked up one bone and kicked it up. >_< it got stuck somewhere and we just lost a bone. But, i think its okay.

When we reached the lab, the first thing we did was to attach the zip lock bag onto our respiratory system so that it can be completed. Mrs Lim joined us shortly after and we showed her our “lungs”. She commented that the balloon was a big difficult to feel since it is made of the same texture as the glove, so if a blind person were to feel it, it might be a bit difficult. Anyway, we soon decided to get started on the circulatory system. We dismantled a card board box to be used as the board. While we were pasting it up, Mr Tan, our very kind and helpful lab technician, offered to let us have a big styrofoam board that they no longer needed. We agreed and he helped us to take it down.

With the board, we started work. Mrs Lim suggested that we could use the visualizer to project an image of the human body on the screen and we could trace it out on the board. However, Jing Yuan was unable to get the school LAN working on his laptop, and so we were unable to do so. So, we decided to get Jia Jie to lie on the board and we would trace him out. And thats what we did.

When the tracing was done, we decided to line the area with the human body with kitchen towels so that the blind can tell whether he is touching part of the body of if he is touching the styrofoam board. We got started. After a tedious task of cutting and pasting, We were done! However the glue was no dry, and we carried the enormous board all the way to staffroom 3 to leave it with Mrs Lim. Somehow, we managed to fit it in a corner of the staffroom. XD.

With that, im done with today’s entry.

Yi Wen