Thank you, Research Assistants

At first, today seemed like a normal day at NUS. I woke up, got breakfast (nasi lemak, my fave), and I went to lab.

However, today was my last day in Singapore.

Wait. What?!

It seems like just a short while ago I was in the midst of finals week at Hopkins, wailing about my Java final and how unfair it was that the final was on the very last day. But it’s over two months later, and I’m now wailing about how fast my time in Singapore went by.

In lab today, I finished my final report, turned it in, and gave the three research assistants each a thank you card and a huge bag of Garrett’s popcorn to share. These three guys made this internship amazing and without them I wouldn’t have learned as much as I did.

Thank you, Nicholas, for representing Prof. Tay that first day and eating lunch with us. Shar and I would have never been able to make it to the 8th floor of the E4 block of the engineering school without you. Thank you for helping me decipher all the Objective-C stuff in the iOS app source code. Objective-C was an alien language to me then (and maybe still is now) but you helped make things clearer.

Thank you, Tin, for allowing me to incessantly bug you about the PD Logger app. Even though you were always busy creating new sensor nodes for the rehabilitation system, you alway took the time to go through the code with me and explain how Bluetooth low energy worked when I had no idea. Because of you, I was able to finally get the Bluno Beetle to connect to the app via Bluetooth. Thank you for also teaching this hapless student how to use a 3D printer. I’m sorry for accidentally wasting a lot of filament printing all my prototypes though….

Thank you, Benjamin, for helping me with that final step to getting the Bluno device to communicate with the PD Logger app. Without your insight, it would have taken me a few more hours (or days…maybe weeks) of head-banging and frustration before I could finally get past that step. Even though we weren’t on the same project, you did the best you could to help me with Objective-C and working with the LIDAR-Lite sensor.

From left to right: Tin, Shar, me, Benjamin, Nicholas

These three research assistants helped Shar and me in so many ways, from teaching us the basics of Objective-C to telling us the best places to eat in Singapore. Without them, I would not have been able to create a working prototype of the infrared start and stop sensors. I learned so much this summer, and if I had the chance to do this all again, I would. I would even be willing to go through the two weeks of hell (again) when I couldn’t figure out the code.

Thanks guys!