Done and Genius I Am

I'M DONE!!! Finally, after suffering the pain for my experiment physically and mentally. But, a siao cha boh was there for helping me out through times of need and definitely all the encouragements kept me going. I really can't say enough thank yous to you. :)

Drum roll please. I'm officially a GENIUS. Muahahahahahaha!(Self praise gets no praise. Yea yea! But I happy mar!) I managed to improve the performance of my wing and my Prof likes it a lot. And guess what. I gave some suggestions/improvements which could be carried out and he said he might consider all of those and will ask Imperial to send over some students to continue with my work. Take that!!! I was super happy when he said that. Who gets that remarks for projects man!

The fall back was that my presentation was a bit long and too informative. Well, I didn't really pay too much attention to it because it was only just 10% of my entire report. What was important was the results I managed to obtain and that was it. Hehehehehe. Sounds so technical.

However, there is always a dark side. You all know that my infamous IC Prof said that my report was superficial. But aiya, don't care la. Both sides will mark my paper and it seems they will take an average of them. So, I pray la this one in Norway will give me super high marks. :)

I have just printed about 300 pages but actually I think I have printed about 2 1/2 rims of paper. Don't worry they will be all recycled for those which got rejected. Hey, if printing here is free why not take advantage kan? I know you all do it if you could so don't give me that 'Cheng Chun, you eco killer!!!' look. :) I love this university. IC is so kiam siap for the amount we have been paying.

But now, it is almost time to say goodbye to Trondheim and I might be back in Norway for summer. It has certainly been one hell of an experience being here and a challenge to see me whether I'm cut out for this leaving my comfort zone.

June Post

First post of the month. People ah, I only post 54 posts last month okay! It isn't overkill yet. :)

Anyway, my presentation is in 3 hours time and I'm slightly unprepared but it is just 10% of my project which I think it is quite small for the amount of effort we put into it like adding the animations, designs of slides etc. Oh well, tembak only la. I can't really be bothered now.

More importantly, I need to finish my report and print it here since it's FREE!!! I must take the opportunity. I'm going to miss this printing stuff when I go back to London. Eh but wait! I don't need to go to College anymore(well once to hand in my report). YATTA!!!

Hehe. Wish me luck!

Wa Ai Si Liao

My report got piaked by my supervisor in London. He said it is 'superficial'. I had put in a lot of time into this report and now I got this remark. I just feel a bit demoralised. But I know he is one tough supervisor to please. I still remember he commenting on Felix's lab report "Very good" and yet he gave him 56%. Bananas!

However, I think I'm quite lucky that I sent my report to be checked early by him. This would give me the time to refine and edit all the comments/suggestions he gave to me. Better take all these criticism and improve on it. I have to redo my graphs and as someone quoted, "Make it non-superficial".

Jia You Cheng Chun!!!

The Report

After spending about 3 weeks, I think it is almost done. I have written about 45 pages and there are about 25 pages worth of data. I'm quite proud this time because I managed to do header and footers. It was a nightmare to do in Word 2003 but with Word 2007, it seems like magic.

For those who are free to proof check my report, do you mind helping me?

All I need now is just to add some more pointers to my discussion and I should be done. Then next, I have to do a power point presentation. Aiya. I hate those. My prof asked use to talk for 1 hour than the 20 minutes recommended. He is crazy!!! I just hope that I can get over this and take my flight home to London.

The weather is fantastic today. Super sunny which woke me up but on the chilly side. I might pop down to town later to get some fish burgers. Hehehehe.

8 more days to go.

Disaster

OH MY GOD!!! I just realised that I must have a logbook where I have to continuously write stuff from the beginning of the project. Oh well, I'm going to fidget and fudge my way through this. I have my mini Shell notepad but I don't think that can cover up to 10% of my entire project.

Nevermind. Semangat a bit to go to the bookshop and get a logbook. BUT THEN! How can Union bookshop close at 3 p.m!!! Wah lau!!! This is cacat man. Aihhhhhhhh. Then I have to do my drawings for my kawaii vortex generators but then I can't print.

More disasters after another. :(

Data, Data, Data

Aiseh. I just formatted about 22 pages of data from Excel into Word. I just hate doing tables in word and especially in 'landscape'. I think I have another 22 more to go tomorrow with a different set of data. Not to mention, I have another 10 graphs to plot. Talking about a REAL experiment.

Well, I took a 15 min walk around my hall. I couldn't stand staying in my room for the past 70 odd hours. I suppose I needed a change of environment for a while. That helped take a pinch of 'worry' out of my system that has been bugging me. However, no time to think of it now. I'm pressing for time with my report.

I think I worry too much at times. I should follow this siao cha boh's advice, 'Let go, let go.' Short but effective. Hahaha. :)

Am I Too Good or What?

Oh my gawd! I didn't know that my experiment would be so good(dunno whether that's good or bad) that now I have to push it even further. You might not understand what I'm saying here but to summarise my wing here is over-performing. I never expected it to stall such as a high angle of attack.

But here is the sad case. I have to KEEP ON DOING IT until it stalls! Aiyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Celaka, here I thought I don't need to do my labour work in College anymore. There goes my Spiderman 3 plan for tonight.

Hmmmmmmmmm. I suppose I could come in on Saturday to do my experiment. Actually, that sounds better. The experiment can wait but Spidey can't. Hehehe.

Scarred For Life

Okay. May be it is over dramatic here but there is an 1 inch(2 cm) long, deep scratch on my forehead. Skin peeled off but luckily it isn't bleeding that much. Well, of course it isn't that deep until you can see my skull. That would leave me to be in the hospital by now. No worries.

I banged into the pitot tube in the wind tunnel. It was on top of the wind tunnel. I turned and it 'doink' on my forehead. Aiyak. There goes my beautiful skin. :(

It seems everyone will eventually bang into that pipe. I know my prof did. Hehehe.

Slow and Easy

Once more, I think I have to do my experiment; the same pressing and clicking. But this time, I got move the Vortex Generators slightly forward. It is going to be a hell time for me because now I have to remove all of the tape I used and re-tape all of them. I spent nearly 2 hours setting that up and there goes another 1 roll of tape. So far, I think I used about 3 rolls of it.

However, this morning I reluctantly got out of bed. No idea why. I usually spring out of bed at the first ring of the bell. I'm still dead tired even though I didn't do anything yesterday. Hehehe. I know. I know. You people out there still have lectures and all and on top of that still have to study. So, I'm pretty sure that you should be even more tired compared to me.

Since as for now they are setting up the wing for me, I think I shall start tabulating 700 points for me to calculate. And oh, I think I might just do half (3 sets) an experiment today. Don't think my body can handle the work today. Wish me luck.

Finally

DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EXPERMIENT!!! I managed to finish all my test for my experiment. After mopping and getting all stressed up about it, it is kinda of over. But being a student from Imperial *cough cough* I did ask my prof to see whether there is anything else for me to do with the wing until he comes back.

Apparently, he is coming back in mid-May. My goodness. By then, I should have completed everything and I would be writing up my report. Oh well, these means I don't need to go to College till then. Doesn't this sound so nice. I still can't believe that Freshers still have to attend lectures after Easter. Poor you. I will think of you when I'm in bed ya. :)

Anyway, here are my babies fabricated by the workshop. My Vortex Generators.

My babies.

They were taped on the wing. Such technologies we have these days.

43 of them on the wing. :)

Just Dead Tired

Today's experiment was a bit useless. The results are very wrong for some odd reason. I really don't know what to do any more. Also I might need to redo some of the old results. This is getting ridiculous. I wonder what's the purpose of my life here.

I started at 8.30 a.m and left at 7 p.m-ish and I'm totally tired. I was suppose to continue my experiment but I ran out of selo tape. An odd reason but may be it is my luck to end the day early. I just took a nap till 10 p.m and I think I better go get more rest. I think I might be getting sick soon.

Just feeling very down now. Can it be jiwang again? Hah! It is bad for health you know.

Clean Wing Done

It is 9.11 p.m and I'm doing with the testing of the clean wing. Tomorrow will be another hell day. So I better go back and rest up well and I have to be back in the next 11 hours. :(

Oh yea, it just snowed again. Gsssssh.

All Over Again

Once again, boring me had to run the experiment and this time with a little twist. As you can see, there are some additional wood panels at the side of the wing. This is to make the aspect ratio infinite to reduce the 3-D effects on the wing. Sorry about the aero jargon, but there is a purpose for everything. Engineer in the making you know. :D

This time I had to use some proper ear-silencers because I would be running the wind tunnel at very high speed. So, of course the faster it goes the noisier it gets. Though of course during the experiment, I couldn't stand the 'no-sound' environment. So, I called in Mr iPod to entertain me.

Nowadays, I can't live without my iPod. My little little baby. My precious baby is of course my laptop.

Anyway, this is what you get when you keep repeating the experiment for nearly 6 times.

Let The Experiment Begin

So, it begins. This is why I'm here in Norway. To do an experimental study on high lift airfoils. Sounds canggih right. But let me assure you, it is one crazy experimental study. As starting from today, I have full access to the wind tunnel here in NTNU(the Norwegian University I'm currently in) which means I can run the tunnel at 0300 in the morning if I wish to. Well of course I'm not that crazy or kiasu to do so but the idea sounds cool!

The wing which I'm testing.

To most people, they might think that this is nothing special, it just a tunnel which blows air? But to us, Aeronautical students, this is like playing WoW or dotA all day long without feeling guilty not going for lectures. The amazing part is that I am now IN CHARGE of the tunnel so I can do as I please with it. MUAHAHAHAHA! Though of course, I better don't do anything funny because it cost about 250,000 pounds. Don't think my parents would appreciate if I went destroying something that expensive and adding onto their bill.

Anyway, I was quite excited to get going. I was given the green light to start testing the wing at 10a.m. However, being totally new to all these equipments(transducers, amplifiers and goodness what - you EE people should know) I had to play around for an hour to get all the settings right. And then it started, the first time I switching on the wind tunnel. The roaring sound of the motor sounded great and turning the nob to increase the speed was fun. It gave this wheezing sound.

The wind tunnel I'm in control of. MUAHAHAHAHA.

Round 1

Once I set the wind speed I wanted, I had to manually clicked, pressed and switched 66 times on the machines because I had 66 pressure tappings in the airfoil. Sorry if this gets a bit technical but hey, it is all about aero stuff :). Not knowing what I did for the next 45 minutes, I decided to make a graph and the plot was a straight line. My heart fell because it wasn't suppose to be a straight line but more like an airfoil shaped-like. I decided to fidget the other pressure tappings and yes, it was the one wrong into the transducer. Sigh. All that work took me nearly 1 1/2 hours to get the measurements so I had a quick lunch and went back for round 2.

Round 2

I knew that I was right this time and ran the experiment again. Now, my graph wasn't a straight line but more like what I expected to be. And here I thought that I would be done and moved on to the next set of measurements(i.e. a different angle of attack). However, when I showed my results to my Prof, he was like "This is wrong. Something is wrong with your stagnation point." I felt like running into a wall. I already spent another 1 1/2 hours doing the same thing(yes - another 66 clicking, pressing and switching) and the results are still wrong. Both of us tried to find what the problem was and it turned out to be me NOT using the right pressure tappings. I felt like an idiot then. Oh well.

Round 3

Still determined to finish this experiment for today at least, I ran it again with all the proper tappings. And victory was mine. I managed to get the results I wanted. It all looked fine and I was too burnt out to continue the next set of measurement. Well, actually it was more of atechnicality issue. But I think I have been rambling with my jargon and I think most of you here must be thinking 'Uh huh, what is Cheng Chun talking about. Nevermind, it sounds cool'.

Ahhhhhh. The day was over for me. After a long day's work where sitting there clicking, pressing and switching, I know this wasn't a brainer job but it is definitely quite sian to sit there for 5 hours worrying about your results being right or wrong. Oh well, day 1 using the wind tunnel is over for now. As for now, I'm back in my room waiting for my kiam chai soup to boil. I really need something soupy to calm my nerves.

Oh yea, here are some of the pictures of my experiment.

The pressure holes in the airfoil. Inside those holes are tubes linking to a computer. This is where I get to calculate the pressure.

Pitot tube - To calculate the total pressure in the wind tunnel. From here we can get the true wind speed of the wind tunnel.

Me doing work. Serious. :)

Feel free to ask me anything about the project though I think you all will run away. Hahaha.