Doing the Final Year Project (FYP) is one of the toughest things a university student has to go through.

I’ve said before that I will not talk about anything technical, academic, or any stressful work in my personal blog, but I would like to show off my FYP lab!

Oh wait, first let me remark that most FYP students will be given some kind of lab to work in. And the lab assigned would be one that is linked to your project title. Being the Faculty of Engineering, naturally most students are assigned to humming, boring, technical labs crammed with wires and zombie machines like these:

*credit: all pics stolen from Faculty of Engineering website*

However, I am simply fortunate enough to have chosen a project that would spare me from all those alien-portal-producing labs. Instead, I am working on an image and video processing project that focuses on designing intelligent features to future smart homes.

Naturally, that would require that I be given at least a fake smart home to work in! Haha, introducing… the MMU Digital Home Lab!

Situated conveniently in one of the labs on the lower ground floor of the faculty, this reclusive paradise is unknown to most students! Sponsored by your timely bill payments to TM, Maxis, Astro, along with partners Intel, LG and government agency Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), this lab spoils us FYP students to the max!

Me and my friends Tee and Ariadne, being the only group of FYP students to occupy the lab most of the time – and even after university hours – this is becoming our favourite hideout for the rest of our final year!

With a nice kitchen with a working double-door fridge for us to store our drinks and snacks, and a comfy bedroom to sle-, err, conduct our research, there is absolutely no more reason for us to hang out or study in the library (like last time) anymore!

And did I mention? This lab has a dedicated, password-protected 20Mbps UniFi high speed broadband dedicated for the exclusive use of its occupants. The internet connection here is literally 20 times faster than my line at home! Ahhh..

Other temptations of this lab include a fully working Nintendo Wii, IPTV which comes with the UniFi, multiple LCD TVs, and a long, soft couch for us to indulge in… what else – our research discussions of course. =)

I wonder if our FYP supervisor would realize after this semester that an account was opened boldly with his name and has appeared on hi-scores in almost all of the Wii games? Hehe… 

Anyway, this is the SOHO area of the lab at which we (really) do most of our development:

Well with all the unnecessary luxuries of this lab (kitchen, bedroom and all…), I think what it really needs is a toilet!

Heading out of this haven into the student-filled faculty corridors just to use the public toilets is a nuisance. But I’m definitely not complaining! This is da-best-place-EVA to do an FYP in this campus!

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This morning (Nov 30) there was a symposium for digital home lifestyle in our university and our lab became the exhibition spot for a number of VIPs!

Malaysian Information, Communications and Cultural minister Dato’ Seri Utama Dr. Rais Yatim was scheduled to visit but due to emergency reasons had to be taken over by the deputy minister.

Err, I’m not a politician, but I don’t suppose it’s too hard to take over an absent minister’s place, right? Hehe I guess all Deputy minister Dato’ Joseph Salang had to do was deliver the minister’s opening speech from a well-script piece of paper…

But we all experienced the deputy minister’s friendliness and humour when he visited out lab, where our lecturers eagerly showed off their research projects!

Here’s my FYP supervisor Dr. Chang, who’s also the leader of the whole digital home lab project, briefing some new technology to the deputy minister, along with our university’s parent company TM’s Chairman of the Board of Directors YBhg. Datuk Dr. Halim Shafie, and MCMC chairman YBhg. Tan Sri Khalid Bin Ramli, who were also present.

*all pictures below are property of Bernama and KPKK. No copyright infringement intended.*

My ex- programming lecturer demonstrating the multi-touch tabletop home control system. This system apparently allows you to control all lights and electricals in the house and even play games on a touch-screen-like table, only that it doesn’t use a conventional touch screen and therefore costs only a fraction of what normal ones do… great for home implementation!

Dr. Kiyoshi Hamaguchi explaining the in-home healthcare monitoring system which monitors your blood pressure, ECG signals, heart rate etc. wirelessly while you’re at home and immediately alerts and streams your health data to a medical officer in case of an emergency.

And here’s me butting into the scene where Signal Processing lecturer Dr. Shima explains about her project, which classifies the human brain’s EEG electrical signals and aims to ultimately use it to control computers and smart homes.

It’s a very interesting project and I almost choose her research field as my FYP project title, but in the end I chose my current title as I felt it is more applicable to my future work.

Hehe standing beside the VIPs is a good choice because the band of reporters were always taking photos from opposite them. LOL. =)

… for the UK…

…to study!

Well, considering London is more than 10,000 kilometres away from KL, this is a long, long distance relationship indeed.

Nobody likes a long distance relationship. In fact, according to some random internet statistics, 40% of all long distance relationship break up!

But on the bright side, she is only going there for her final year. Meaning it’s not like forever that we’re gonna be apart… And besides, it’s always better for any law student to study in the UK, right?

Here’s our final pic together at the airport before her departure:

Besides, this provides me with an excellent excuse to make a trip to the UK this semester break! Haha!

Time to save up money!!

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November marks the beginning of the second trimester of my final year in university.

This semester would be like just any other boring semester, except for the fact that I am taking SIX friggin’ subjects including one FYP – the most annoying Final Year Project that is worth 8 insane credit hours – alone accounting for almost three subjects’ worth of weight in your CGPA.

When I was a freshman in university, I thought that being a final year student would be unimaginably cool.

If you were a final year student, I thought, you would be king and lord of the campus. You would be revered by every junior and admired by every girl. And having studied all there is to study in your course, you would probably be so good in your stuff that you could just take your own sweet time and NOT have to study and catch up lessons all day and night. I imagined you would be so free that you could be extremely active in clubs and societies lording over the newbies and going out with friends every night!

Life, I assumed, would be so interesting in the final year!

Well now that I’ve become a final year student, I realized that instead of becoming a star, I’ve become a dinosaur. Although I am still president of a club, I realized that campus life just isn’t that interesting anymore. Friends have resigned from their exco positions in other clubs just to concentrate on the FYP and studies. Nobody goes for trips anymore, and in fact nobody has time to do anything anymore! A third of them are doing their internships this semester, a third of them are sucked into the FYP bog, and a third of them have already graduated (non-engineering friends).

And it sucked more when I found out a couple of years back, when I was extremely active in Tourism Club, that final year students aren’t exactly the cool and fun people as I had thought in my first year, but rather on the contrary consists of those that are not active, not spontaneous, and rather always nerdy looking people worrying over the next FYP presentation or submission schedule.

Now I think I can understand why. Time is such a scarcity in the final year and everything seems to boil down to the results that you get now. Although I’ve never thought of myself being a guy who works in an academic-results-oriented industry, for some very peculiar reason, results just seem to matter now. A lot.

God save me from becoming a geek!