[Photos] Nikon S1000PJ

Hi guys! I'm back to Singapore and my blog! Just thought I would share some pictures taken with my compact digital camera!

 Taken at Changi Airport! Good lighting + Close proximity = Easy shot

 Taken from the 21st Floor of a hotel in China! Zoomed 25x but it is still relatively clear!

 Taken from the ground floor kilometers away! Yet another shot on 25x zoom!

 This shot was difficult due to wind conditions. However, the shake compensation did its job and allowed this photo to be taken at 25x zoom!

 Although the camera does not do particularly well when it comes to night shots, I managed to get a decent picture with a 1 second exposure time. In fact, the environment was much darker than what is displayed in this picture.

 The first macro shot of this post! The reflections off the glass was well captured and details can be seen throughout.

 After realizing that macros were the strong point of this camera, I decided to take a few more with decent results.

 Taken atop a mountain, the water was clearly captured, even at a distance.

 As usual, the zoom did not disappoint. Images were sharp even at the maximum zoom distance.

 An interesting piece of architecture to say the least. This building is tilted sideways.

 Textures were crisp even under low lighting.

 Taken out of the hotel room, this structure is kilometer away. Yet the picture maintains its crispness.

 A nice shot of the camera's casing with textures pronounced.

 The reflective surface of the bean curd glistens in this photo, begging to be eaten.

 Scenery and architecture too turned out well as shot of varying brightness and zoom were beautiful.

 Most of the times, colors were faithfully reproduced although the compensation could not do enough to correct the yellow lighting.

Night photography was good as long as the subject was close. However, the second last picture, which was taken at 25x zoom seemed to lose some of its sharpness.

That said, this compact is good enough for me!

[Robocup] Finalised Team

Hi Guys,

This is the long awaited finalized team list. Apart from competency in engineering and programming, we also considered other factors such as enthusiasm as well as learning attitude. This list is final.

Raffles Lite: Kenneth Chow, Yap Shi Jed, Jeremy Chan, Jarret Ng
Raffles A: Kenneth Chow, Tan Wei Ren, Vishnu R Menon, Shen Chen
Raffles B: Kenneth Chow, Huang Zefan, Shen Chen, Lee Chan Wai

Please note that training dates are as follows:
16th December, 10am to 6pm
23rd December, 10am to 6pm
30th December, 10am to 6pm

As I will be away till the middle of next week, please drop any queries at kc.riicc@gmail.com and forward them to shenc.96@gmail.com.

Thanks,
Kenneth

[Robocup] Selection 1

Role                 Raffles Lite                 Raffles A                 Raffles B
Multi Purpose Kenneth Chow                 Kenneth Chow         Kenneth Chow
Engineer          Jeremy Chan / Jarret Ng Tan Wei Ren         Huang Zefan
Programmer Yap Shi Jed                 Vishnu R Menon Shen Chen
General 1         Jeremy Chan / Jarret Ng Shen Chen         Lee Chan Wai
General 2         Slot 1                         Slot 2                 Slot 3

Hi guys,

This is the tentative team arrangements as of this weekend. Of course, things might change once I get to see your improved programs on Monday. In case you have not already heard, there will be a meeting on Monday for all confirmed members as well as those who want a second shot for the three slots left. For those who need the software to improve on their programs at home before coming to school on Monday to test, please inform me via kc.riicc@gmail.com. For those who are on the team, please try to bring along a Math set as you guys are going to be practising some drawing on Monday. Also, if you prefer to have the CD to install the software, please bring your laptops along. For those on the team, it is recommended that you do so as you cannot live with the school laptop for the entire duration of the holidays, much less the competition.

Thanks,
Kenneth

[Robocup] The final phase

Hi guys,

For those of you who have submitted your ideas, I applaud your effort. For those who have not, you have 3 more hours.

Here are the people who have been shortlisted for Phase 3 (Order is based on timing of submission):

1) Reno
2) Jarret
3) Chan Wai
4) Jeremy
5) Daryl
6) Yap Shi Jed
7) Joseph
8) Jing Chun

More names will be added to this list once we have looked through your entries. Please be prepared to come down either tomorrow or on Friday for Phase 3 at 1pm regardless of day. Once the submission is closed, we will release the finalized list as well as details about Phase 3.

Thanks,
Kenneth

[Youtube] My Channel

Hey guys,

Just wanted to share that I uploaded some Robocup videos from Turkey this year. as I have realised the lack of Robocup Junior Soccer Category A Lightweight videos. In addition, its Superteam and Individual 2nd quality! Take a look if you are getting started!

http://www.youtube.com/user/Kenchow96?feature=mhee

Thanks,
Kenneth

[FTC] Sneak Peak 2

Attachment <1>

[Announcement] Robocup Selection

Hi Guys,

The selection for the most prestigious competition in robotics is up again and we will be selecting the best builders, programmers, logicians and others with general talents we find useful.

With such a huge pool of talent, it is difficult to select the best guys to represent our school and perhaps our country. As such we exposed those who wanted to learn more about the competition during the camp. However, those who did not attend will still be able to attain a manual of all that was taught in the camp by emailing me at kc.riicc@gmail.com. Those who have attended the camp but still want some notes to reinforce your memory, please also contact the above email address asking for the materials.

A truly good robotician can not only build and program but also come up with new ideas to ensure that we stay ahead of the competition. As such, all who are interested in being part of the team next year, please come up with a new algorithm that will improve our chances of winning. The format of submission is as follows:

1) Reason for implementation (Current algo too slow? Better accuracy? Lacking in this year''s program?)

2) Logic

3) Possible Problems

4) Pseudo-code

If you think that a current subroutine is inadequate, you could also improve on it. It does not matter if it is a big change as any change can make a difference. Please send this to kc.riicc@gmail.com

Here is the tentative team arrangement:

Category A Lightweight: Kenneth Chow, Vishnu R Menon, Slot 1, Slot 2

Category A Open: Kenneth Chow, Huang Ze Fan, Shen Chen, Slot 3

Category B Open: Kenneth Chow, Tan Wei Ren, Shen Chen, Slot 4, Slot 5

As you can see, there are currently 5 slots available and we could even be opening 1 more slot per team should we have too much talent.\n\nIn conclusion, we would like to check out your skills as soon as possible so that we can start working. Do note that you will be overworked and underpaid (Up to 84 hours a week, paid $0.00 [any currency will do])

Thanks,

Kenneth Chow

[FTC] Sneak Peek

Driving Base

[StrITwise 2011] Conclusions

StrITwise is finally over and Team Raffles has achieved some results after this arduous journey.


rscRIpt3
strITbiz: 1st place (Trophy)
Overall: 3rd place (Trophy + Nintendo 3DS)






stRItwise
strITdesign: 3rd place (Trophy)
Overall: 9th place (Trophy + Logitech Wireless Keyboard)

cheeRIos
Overall: 30th place

The results could have been much better but lets be contented! According to Ranald's calculations, we are second in the National Infocomm Challenge (NIC) now, behind Hwa Chong which has failed to attain any significant position in strITwise.

[PowerPoint] Simple Theme

PowerPoint needs more unique themes so watch this post as I attempt to develop something that goes against the flow.

Cover Slide

The cover slide gives the first impression and has to cover details such as the organisation you are representing as well as the names of the presenters. More often than not, these details are boring and do not catch the attention of the viewer. Hence, a fresh, clean design for the cover slide is essential to capture the attention of the reader. Here, variation in tones and font sizes create a dynamic feel to the slide and viewers will be interested in specific chunks of content placed at various angles.

List View
Who says the title has to be at the top of the slide? With this positioning, the reader is first drawn to the title of the slide before actually reading the points. The key word is clearly highlighted while the rest of the title can be done in a less distracting font as the viewer will read on from the key word. Also, listing becomes a clear priority here as the numbers are huge. However, attention is not completely diverted as it is in an extremely light font. The slide feels clean as there are huge empty spaces. However, the dense content means that there is no empty feel as experienced in half filled default PowerPoint themes.

Content slide

The picture above is actually a slide used the the middle of a fading transition, hence the reduced opacity of text. The main point that is to be brought across here is that points have to be well spaced out. That means one point per slide. Not only does the transition give readers time to absorb all the information that is on the slide, it also gives emphasis to the point that you are making, instead of giving the impression that it is one out of the many points that you talking about. Font size also plays a part here. A large font size will naturally give you an edge since readers do not have to strain to get your point, or look through a mess of small paragraphs. If you really have to drone, the slides are not the right place. Do that in your script, or maybe a hand out for your audience if possible. 

Multiple header slides

Some slides naturally require header after header after header. Microsoft's solution is to provide sub-point after sub-point after sub-point, each one uglier than the last. Here, I have another solution for you. How about layering the headers in different styles and orientations such that it does not feel like a header, but acts like one nonetheless? With the main header already settled by the scrolling bar on the left of the screen, we can then include a sub header as seen in this picture with a solid colour filled picture with clearly contrasting text on it. Not only does this remove the monotonous text based feel of the slides, it also serves as a change in terms of stylistic approach. Different categories as presented in this slide can be written in a larger, more visible font with the red text drawing the focus.

Transition slides

Content on slides can sometimes hamper the smooth transition between slides. Hence, customised transitions are the solution to these otherwise jerky slide changes. By blanking out content on the slides, the viewers can focus on the change in topic without having to deal with massive amounts of content being thrown at them. Hence, inserting a blank slide after talking about a point will greatly enhance the visual spectacle while increasing the information absorption rate of the audience. Specialised transitions such as wipe up will work well with this theme as the headers come in a list from top to bottom. 

[App UI Mockup] Announcements

Emails, Facebook, SMS inefficient in spreading announcements? Capitalise on your smart phone by utilising a dedicated application to send announcements whether for your work or social purposes!

*Important Notice* This is a draft.

This user interface was specifically designed for Raffles Institution's Infocomm Club (more information can be found at riicc.sg). For an unconventional, yet clean feel, the headers have been moved to the sides. Browsing through announcements under different headers can be done by swiping up or down to move to the next or previous categories. The unread count is clearly displayed on the top of the page, where options to sort by date or importance. Directly below that, we get a display picture of the announcer, removing the wordy feel of the application. The name as well as the date and time sent are also also clearly stated. Below that we have the actual announcement. Instead of having a scroll bar, an up and down arrow sit at the top and bottom right hand corner of the message. This is so as the swiping gesture is already used for switching between the categories. Below the message, we have 2 actions to allow the user to set reminders for the announcement displayed, namely a pin to notification and a set reminder option. the set reminder option will utilise the built in alarm clock, automatically inputting data into known fields while allowing the user to change fields should he feel that the information extracted is not accurate. Below the actions bar, we have page skipping options if the user does not feel like using the left and right swipes for switching posts. However, should the user prefer a cleaner interface, this can be removed. 

Watch out for my upcoming posts as I improve on the UI for this app!

[PowerPoint] Effective designs with photoshop

PowerPoint presentations are the standard visual aids for presentations in this technological age. The user-friendly, intuitive layout allows even the most inexperienced user to create slides with animations and transitions. However, it is an entirely different story when it comes to designing professional looking slides encapsulating all the information you want to relay. This simple run through demonstrates the power of a Photoshop-PowerPoint mash-up.

1. The cover slide

Like an introduction, the cover slide gives the first impression of your team, as well as the presentation to your viewers. Hence, it will not suffice to simply fill up the cover slide template Microsoft provides us with. In the example provided above, the emphasis is clearly on the name of the team. Also included are the team member's names, the name of my organisation as well as other information to placed at varying angles to give the presentation a dynamic feel. The logo also gives the viewer a graphical representation for a more lasting impression so that he can form a mental connection between the group and the organisation. Even though so much information is presented, the slide looks clean as only 3 colors are used. lighter shades are also employed so that the slides seen less cluttered, allowing the viewer to focus his attention on the key idea of the slide. The subtle reflection at the bottom of the slide reinforces the key idea.

2) Single object slide

A slide such as this has only 1 key topic, as well as the details that the presenter would like to inform the readers about. The list view in the default PowerPoint application does convey the point but large amounts of information would intimidate the viewer and make the slides seem cluttered at the same time. Yet again, we can employ the technique of dynamism by varying the angle of the text. Emphasis  and focus can be directed by changing the color scheme as well as the font size of the text. In the example above, the main object is seen in the largest font. Since the area that we are describing would be his traits, it is highlighted in red in a smaller font, making it the second object that the viewer focuses his attention on. These traits are also separated into physical and character traits. However, instead of explicitly stating such boundaries, we use variance to give the viewer the impression of separation. The character traits of the object in the example above are in a darker font and are tilted at a uniform angle. The physical traits are done in a slightly lighter font and categories such as "height" and "weight" are written in an even lighter font. This allows the reader to focus on the details while giving him ample information as to what he is reading about. This is done through the use of larger font sizes.

3) Multiple object slide

More often than not, one would have several different points branching into sub-points. However, presenting all your points on a single slide would be bombarding the viewer with too much information as he is only able to absorb a limited amount of information. The solution would be to unify these information by using a constant theme while allowing the viewer to make a mental connection between points by referencing or showing the viewer the links visually. The example above does just that. Each point is clearly marked through the use of a red square bracket. Within it, an acronym is placed to reinforce the memory of the viewer about the content of the box. The smaller text in the box provides details as the the viewer would want to know what these acronyms stand for. Elaboration is added to the bottom of the box. This stylistic enhancement to the default formatting allows the viewer to better remember the points and is clean throughout, removing the cluttered feel of content heavy presentations. The header of the topic is at the bottom left corner and is seen on all three slides, allowing the viewer to group all three ideas under the same umbrella term of "special abilities". Another technique used to unify would be to show the previous and next point in a slightly lower transparency so that the viewer can still make reference to the previous point while focusing his attention on the current one. This left to right scrolling also fits in nicely with some PowerPoint transitions such as wipe, creating the flow of the presentation.

For the slides, Photoshop or jpeg files, please feel free to contact me at kennethchow96@gmail.com