PBL - 14

What an eventful day! Today, i had my group's final presentation rehearsals for both PBL1 and PBL2.

Yixiang wanted PBL2 presenters to practice first as the final presentation is tomorrow. We had a blast from our side. Ni Jun gave an excellent introduction to the heart valve design. Oh boy! he improved a lot over the semester. He really can articulate his ideas now. Also, I finally resolved the mystery of who between the Swiss duo is presenting for PBL2.

When it was the turn for PBL1, Yixiang seemed patchy and unprepared for his part. He couldn't kick off well and was stammering most of the time. I chipped in between, and showed him a sample of how to present the introduction. Everyone agreed that Yixiang should present along my lines. Yixiang humored us by imitating my style and voice of presentation. Although it was quite funny, we suggested him to have his own way of presentation.

Olvier gave the conclusion for PBL1 highlighting the advantages and limitations of the ImagineMove system.

Thank God, everything turned out fine. Just 2 more days, and then we will be done with PBL.

Yippie, i had a fun time this sem doing PBLs. Hope others in my group and rest of the class had fun too. I learnt lot of things about MMIs and heart valves. Man, if i had any say, i would recommend that most of the graduate courses should incorporate the PBL component.

I had fun blogging all this while. Hope others can appreciate and learn something about PBLs from my blog.

For world peace, i prayeth. Happy blogging!

PBL - 13

As PBL1 is almost going on auto-pilot mode, and as i am just involved in the back-stage, nothing much has been contributed from my side over the past 10 days.

I sent the intro slides to Yixiang last sat (22nd). I commented a lot in each slide for his benefit. Wonder if he is okay with that.

To satisfy my own curiosity and thirst for knowledge,I spent the last two monday evenings (17th and today) in med library watching videos on upper limb nerve and mucle physiology. Tried to rope in Ni Jun to watch the videos with me, but he seemed disinterested as he is not presenting as well.

We are having our group presentation rehearsals for both PBL1 and PBL2 tomorrow. I am yet to mirror-practice for my PBL2 part. Hope everything turns out fine. This is the last week for PBLs.

PBL - 12

Busy busy week researching on heart valves. Had an interesting PBL meeting with Dr Leo.

Back to PBL1, had meeting today with Yixiang, Lei Yang, and Ni Jun. Yixiang volunteered to do the introduction. I had no problem with that. Everyone else agreed as well.

We spent half-an-hour trying to understand what the feedback component is doing in the system. None of us we clear about it. I wonderful if it really can be that useful. Yixiang came up with a 4-digit binary code system to control the feedback. I wonder if that's what the Swiss duo think about how the feedback works in ImaginMove.

We decided a few things on what content should be included in Yixiang's presentation. He wanted me to send him a few intro slides (which i did for the 3rd PBL meeting with Prof Yu), wanted Lei Yang to send a few slides on Freehand. He wanted animation/videos of hand flexion/extensions. Ni Jun showed him the animations which i gave to Ni Jun on last last monday (3rd oct). I suggested that i will ask Prof Peter Lee if he has some biomechanics or physiology videos of hand grasping.

As i am not presenting for PBL1, i recommended that those who are not presenting for PBL1 should present for PBL2 so that no one is left out. Ni Jun didn't like the idea, but he had to agree to it finally. Lei Yang was also ok with the idea.

So, it is decided that Yixiang and Zhang Liang will present for PBL1. Ni Jun, Lei Yang and myself will present for PBL2. I wonder who between the Swiss duo will present for PBL1 and PBL2.

PBL - 11

After the last meeting with Prof Yu (the one on 28th Sep), Ni Jun looked very depressed. He told me that he is giving up, he won't do any work, and he doesn't care any more. I was surprised at his attitude, then calmed down myself and tried to analyse his situation. I wanted to motivate him. So, i fixed up a meeting with him on monday (3rd oct). On monday, both of us met in med library. I borrowed some physiology animation CDs from the library, showed him what we can do, how we can follow Prof Yu's suggestions,...He himself searched a lot of sites, downloaded many ppts on arm physiology, but he was finding it difficult to assimilate all the stuff. After i showed him the animations and suggested him how we can proceed, he seemed to have gotten motivated. He said that he will give it one more shot and try to do something about it. I am happy that he got some drive.

After that eventful monday session, i spent the rest of the week till now working on PBL2.

Anyways, I had my group meeting today in the afternoon to discuss about both PBL1 and PBL2. The agenda for todays'meeting was to discuss about the format of the final presentation for PBL1 on 28th October. After some serious debate of how many speakers and who will be the speakers, how many minutes for each speaker,..., we came up with the following decision -

PBL1 Final Presentation:
(i) 3 parts –
Intro+Physiology+Freehand, (7-8 mts)
BCI, and (3-4 mts)
Feedback+limitations+conclusion (6-8 mts)
(ii) First part speaker to be decided among Lei Yang, Ni Jun, Yixiang and Kalyan;
Second part speaker is Zhan Liang
Third part speaker to be decided between Ludovic and
Olivier
(iii) Practice presentation on 25th October, 1400hrs to 1600rs.

Lei Yang, Ni Jun, Yixiang and myself decided to meet next thursday (13th Oct) to select the speaker for the 1st part, and finalize on what to present.

I spent rest of the afternoon with Ludovic and Olivier brainstoring for novel mechanical heart valve designs.

Today for the first time i felt that Yixiang was not too happy to allow me to give the introduction for the project. I am happy that he is taking active interest to contribute in the project.

Hey, its saturday tomorrow, party time. Happy weekend bloggers!

PBL - 10

I finally managed to upload the slides yesterday nite.

Prof Yu came late today as usual. He was more communicative today compared to the previous two sessions, gave a lot of feedback, lot of learning issues and praised other groups for their effort. He told us to buck up, refine our presentations, and do a lot of homework.

Others liked my introduction, Ludovic gave me some suggestions. I guess Ni Jun was the scapegoat for the meeting. He got lot of learning issues. Although he does his homework well, he cannot articulate it, that's where he loses out.

Overall suggestion for the group was to know our work thorougly well, and not put anything on the slides we don't understand.

After the meeting, Yixiang asked me if he can join Ni Jun and myself to work on the arm physiology part as his BCI part is almost done. Even Ludovic suggested that we work more on this part as Ni Jun is finding it difficult to manage it alone.

Now that all PBL meetings with Prof Yu are over, we have to prepare for the final presentation on 4th Nov or 28th Oct.

We have to start working on PBL2, it's about heart valves, hope it is fun as well.

Good nite, sweet dreams, happy blogging.

PBL - 09

Wow, i am blogging after more than 10 days.

Let me recall what i did over the past 10 days
1. Met Dr Mohan (from Surgery) to ask about the arm physiology. He was kind enuf to explain in nutshell about the flexor and extensor muscles, their correspoding nerves, and how they coordinate. Ni Jun was also present in this meeting.
2. Met Dr Sanjiv (Stroke specialist, NUH), he explained everything ranging from how paralysis starts, different kind of plegia, what happens in brain, spinal cord, what physiology is affected due to paralysis,...He was willing to give a ppt to the whole group (after i requested). But unfortuntely, he is going home from Deepavali, so have to wait till he comes back.
3. Spent a few hours daily in med library searching for relevant info on upper limb physiology.
4. Met the group on friday (23rd)to update each other, and decide on how to present for the 3rd meeting with Prof Yu. Everone recommended me to give the introduction. So i guess i will introduce the system, need for the system, and current technology in the market; Also i think will give an overview of the different components of the system. I have to do the conclusion as well.


Today, i meet Lei Yang in the canteen, discussed about PBL. We came up with a name for our system - ImagineMove. I would credit both Lei Yang and myself for this name. Hope others like it.

I am yet to finalize my slides for the wednesday meeting. Tonite is the submission deadline. Oh boy, this PBL is taking too much of my time, have a paper to submit for the conference, have no idea how i am gonna manage time.

PBL - 08

Met Ni Jun before the meeting to find out what he did overnite. Seems he managed to read up on the basics on mucle and nerve physiology. Complements well with my work.

Had an eventful second meeting with Prof Hanry, got a lot of learning issues. Ni Jun and myself are supposed to find out about the muscle and nerve physiology involved in grasping function (all 5 digits if possible. I think we narrowed down the problem definition to using BCI to control a neuroprosthetic arm to enable hand grasping function in the patient. Yixiang titled the problem as BCI controlled artificial limb.

After the meeting, had a little chat with Prof Yu on what actually PBL is, how the group is coping with the different kind of teamtask, what my opinions are about PBL,...Oh yeah, we also talked about GPBE, GSC and the new regime changes and stuff.