It’s Halloween time again and look! no one’s celebrating it over here in Singapore! Go around in a costume trick or treatin’ and you will end up getting tricked most of the time or maybe being labeled as “siao”, a crazy door-to-door salesman or people won’t open the door for you. Don’t you just love being like a frog in the well? Well I think Singaporeans don’t mind! We “own” everybody in these things, especially queuing up for hello kitty toys…

The Final year project (FYP) vetting was yesterday, my team’s presentation went well and the panel expressed great interest in our project, painting a picture that our project have a high chance of hitting the central white tent. Just like every team given a short 3-4mins to present, we were quickly told not to do our full planned presentation and get straight to the point on our project, presenting face-to-face on the table with the panel from our laptops. There were some overkills especially from the aeronautical side- those peeps just have an ego to maintain, going in with a full formal tie and blazer attire, overkill! I bet they will end up spending more of time getting screwed by the panel on their attire than get any work presented. Will keep in the update on the final postings for Spinnovex 2008 on Friday.

Though it’s the E-learning week now, our project group have to be in school everyday as we do not have any academic modules to take this semester. Well besides yesterday’s project vetting day, all the foodcourts in campus are always open and empty at our normal lunch peak hours, it’s so unreal!

Got a locker near my class in campus, so I can always just dump my bag and belongings in before heading out for my “every other day” Ulu-Pandan canal runs and gym. Beats having to keep having loose change to use the gym lockers which will be closed and inaccessible after 7.30pm.

Got this urgent appeal from Dr Saba Iqbal from the Down Syndrome Association Singapore, it’s regarding the need for volunteers on Saturday 29th December 2007, get your family, friends, relatives! Do drop DSA a line if you happen to be free that day to help out for a good cause!

DOWN SYNDROME ASSOCIATION FLAG DAY 2007 29 DECEMBER 2007

Greetings from Down Syndrome Association (Singapore)!

On behalf of persons with Down syndrome and their families, I am appealing to your youth group/union/club for your support by assisting us in selling flags on our Flag Day to be held on Saturday, 29 December 2007.

Down Syndrome Association (Singapore) [DSA] is a self-funding, non-profit, voluntary welfare organization that looks after the needs of people with Down syndrome in Singapore. We are totally dependent on institutions, organisations and kind volunteers such as yourself, to raise funds through our events such as the Flag Day.

We need to raise $800,000 this year in order to continue serving the needs of the children and adults with Down syndrome and their families. The DSA Flag Day serves as an important platform for DSA to raise much-needed funds and we hope to be able to raise at least S$135,000 through this event.

As you may have realised, this year, our Flag Day falls during the school holiday period. We are therefore facing much difficulty finding volunteers because Secondary Schools are unable to lend us a hand. However, we are hoping that your gracious support will contribute to the success of our Flag Day and ultimately provide us with the funds necessary to address the growing needs and concerns of persons with Down syndrome and their families.

Please find attached the Flag Day Reply Form for your reference. I would appreciate it interested members of your group/union/club could fill up the attached form and email/fax it to us by Monday, 12 November 2007.

In the meantime, should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact my colleague, Miss Lavannya Elangovan at Tel: 62783907 ext13, Fax: 62783908 or email: lavannya@downsyndrome-singapore.org

Yours sincerely

Dr Saba Iqbal
Executive Director
Down Syndrome Association (Singapore)

Download flag day application/donation form from Shaunchng.com (thank you for all your aid and support! - Event expired, link has been taken down). Kindly complete the form and Email or fax it to DSA before 12 November 2007.

The New Balance real run 2007 had just ended and this puts one more race this year being held in the East (and so to the dismay of my people living in the west but to the joy for those in the east). It’s so given the usual centralised Realrun event venue (gateway carpark in Sentosa) being permanently closed for redevelopment by Genting Resorts World, so technically speaking we are looking at a whole new place to run and possibility areas where the organizers can afford to mess up, how do they fair in this year’s race?

Pre-race management & Transport Options
First off, Having an event in such a remote part of Singapore requires some serious thought into getting the horde over, that was well planned with multiple direct shuttle bus locations all around the island (AMK, Jurong, Kallang, Outram, Tanah Merah & Woodlands) for a modest fee of $3, similar to that used by SCM as well. There was ample parking space for those who drive, with a whole aviation carpark worth of space, only that you have to be in by 7am or you have to park at the nearby Changi Beach carpark and make your way to the start line by foot.

There was free direct shuttle bus service from pasir-ris MRT itself for those who prefer to commute themselves and forgo the $3 direct shuttle. The interesting and commendable thing was that shuttle services was even extended to 7am, contrary to the last bus at 6.45am, which came very much as a welcome and relief who thought they “missed the last bus” and had to take public transport. Similarly for those who drove in late, the drawback for shuttle buses arriving after 6.45am was the need for the runners to make their way 3km towards the startline due to the roads already being closed at 7, further making them late and missing the start. Buses can’t go in either for safety reasons, despite them being all clear and being serviced by SCDP trucks as well.

Recognized was the organisers effort was for this category, but they would score top marks for transport if they could take up one lane for last minute service buses, so runners do not need to rush their way to the start in order to begin the race.

Other noticeable pre-race events would include the usual preludes and race pack collection were on for runners. Which all served their purpose and went on well.

The Route View Lonely Runner’s GPS Route Map
The route started with runners all set to conquer the long runway stretch. To my disbelief we actually had 6 full running lanes which was really spectacular for a flag off, though the obvious bulk and horde of runners, space was very adequate and there was plenty of room for overtaking. The runway kept on for slightly above 2km to space and distribute the crowd up to take on the bottleneck into a one way tarmac pavement on the first left bend along Changi Coast Road, which many transition in quite smoothly only that overtaking became more of a feat and space greatly reduced.

The return trip after the U-turn along Changi Coast road was sufficiently big and open again, very good running route with good shelter from the rising sun. Most of the trail area was covered and shady as well, except for some areas around the sand route where it gets really seawater musty and hot. But that will not beat the last 2km runway stretch being the ultimate runner’s mental test back to the finishing line without any shelter at all.

The organisers took effort into ensuring that the race route was fully understood by runners with maps and information besides the training run, with distinctively marked start and finish gantries so there won’t be last minutes shocks and changes to the route like the Mizuno wave run this year.

Terrain
The relief is generally all flat throughout, except for some minor gradient visible on the runway straights, all other parts of the course are perfectly flat, even the beach had some flat sandy areas on the bank tops where all the runners ended up running along too. With the exception of weather, the Sentosa course was very much more difficult to run than at Changi, especially being faced with hillys ups and down, not to mention large open beaches on the sand part- the Changi route was simply much more “soft” to be called an “ultimate cross terrain challenge”.

10km runners flagged off

The Start Line

The vast spaces

Post-race management
The post race was excellent, the whole changi exhibition center was booked for the event and air-conditioning was turned on all round - a perfect and open place for all runners to cool down after the scorching finish. There were lots of outdoor shelters and 100-plus umbrellas for those who wanted to acclimatise for awhile after finishing before entering the air-conditioned environment.

Race carnival
All the race carnivals and race booths are all situated in the exhibition center itself, with ample space for crowds without any congestion, and was space not an issue here - with the total floor area of few aircraft hangers, need more space and head to the back of the center where you will be greeted by a long big empty air-conditioned space to your hearts delight. No nearby food hawkers? Hungry? everything is cater for, all you need to do is to show the greens.

The lucky draw was held a the the central stage and 91.3 DJS Suzanne walker and Joe from the Morning show were there to keep the crowd chirpy and entertained, though being DJs they tend to talk more than what they usually should do, but that didn’t stop the crowd from staying till the end of the lucky draw with all prizes drawn out on the day itself to the crowd content, contrary to the rather disappointing “single draw or direct donation to charity if no takers” during the 2005 event. Glad they didn’t do this this year.

Collection Points
I finally came to understand why the 10km start time is pushed to 7.30am instead of 7.45am - having the 15km at 7.30am and the 10km 7.45am as opposed previously will only add to the congestion at the finish and possible large surge in crowds for the 2 events possibly converging and finishing together, (since only with a lag time of only about 10-15mins for the top runners). Having the 10km starting safely earlier will ensure all these runners clearing their league of the race first so there won’t be bottlenecks at the finishing line and bag collection points, and since that 15km runners will definitely come later than their 10km counterparts, everything will be clear and ready for the next 15km wave to be accommodated when they arrive.

I personally did not deposit any baggage, but heard baggage collection was fast and breezy having the need to pay $1 to deposit your bag, so it’s very much like having an ERP charge which definitely kept the numbers of bags down.

Goodie bag collection was a great breeze too and just like every year there were no long queues at all, it’s like dash and go, no matter when you finish. Maybe Mizuno waverun can learn a thing or two from the Realrun too, also given the fact that this is a new venue with lots of opportunities for things to go wrong, glad the organizing committee saw that through.

Exhibition Center

Our Prize winners!

My SGRunners Achievement Certificate!

Prizes
Top timings go to “superman” a Malaysian for 15km in just 52min. And for 10km opens, it was like 32mins. Results wise, 4 of our SP track and field runners came in within the top 20 of the Men’s Junior category and Brokie from the SGrunners presented me with my events certificate of achievement today as well! Cheers to the SGrunners, Yoke Thye and GuetPing who were there too.

Heading Back
The roads only open up after 10am, this is a technical and safety limitation so anyone who wants out before that have to make their way out by foot which quite a few runners were seen doing, otherwise the carparks and shuttle bus services towards Pasir-Ris will start at 10am sharp when the roads are re-opened. While those who drove will only be greeted by an oven hot car to head back home, there was a healthy flow of air-conditioned shuttle buses for those who needs a free lift back to Pasir-Ris. The buses kept up pretty well with the horde of crowds heading back, even at the end of the event- waiting time for buses never went past 5mins on a single wait, not only people were queuing up for buses, the buses were also queuing up to be boarded as well, well done!

Overall 8.5/10 (Highly Satisfying Race)
Good race! The Realrun team never disappoint with this year’s run, despite all the challenges with a new route and venue. Logistics to transport were all thought through. Commendable!

With IVP over, it all looks straight for the New balance realrun tomorrow morning. There will be full road closure from Tanah Merah Coast Road to Airport Logistic Park from 7am - 10am. Despite it’s remote location, at least the organizer offered paid bus services and free shuttle buses from Pasir-Ris for those not commuting by private transport. The last free shuttle bus timing is 6.45an, otherwise you can still catch bus service 89 at white sands busstop facing Pasir-Ris park towards SAF ferry terminal where you have to make a short 1km walk to the start point (Changi Ferry Terminal)

Latest weather outlook for Sunday: Showers with thunder in the morning.

Good luck for all running tomorrow, recce reports of the weather within the area being extremely very hot during the mornings, especially when we are talking about open tarmac roads. Heat is generally high in these areas except the sheltered trail area.

It’s also time of the year again where our year one students get to go through a series of course options in their path of studies, namely the second year specialization between the CIE (creativity innovation and enterprise option) or the TF (teaching factory) option. Our lecturers will gather all the year ones for a talk and showcase of our work to “sell” the course option to them, hopefully getting the bulk to their option.

As usual my lecturer took my team’s second year presentation video for the showcase and wow the crowd, only this year round, I do not actually need to present the project to the students themselves due to time and venue constraints (I personally do not like speaking to an audience in a cramped LT). In the end I felt that my video did most of the talking - our TSO told us that we are expecting about 200% more signups for our CIE course next year as compared to the previous, all because it “was all my fault for doing such a good job!” he said.

As flattering as that may sound, looking back I think I really did transformed the SP DME-CIE course since I stepped foot in it. The course started bleak with very few students and unproven teaching techniques. With the exception of the resignation of one designer lecturer to the relocation of another, glad the lecturers there took good criticism to the software they were using initially and adopted my suggestion for 3D Studio Max and the use of Adobe premier for product design. Now our design studio is a hot spot for final year students and potential new design engineers alike, because “It was my fault”.

“Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Give him the tools to fish he will be fed for time to come.”

Today is the IVP day 2 held at Gombak stadium, the highlight event today would have to be the 10,000m run. Darius and Alvin was in representing SP and Darius came in 4th overall and Alvin11th. I remembered my race in 2005 and it was not easy especially running in the overglare of the setting evening sun. Good thing no one came in last and it had been so for as long as I remember for the 10,000m event.

Days working in the school’s design hub took quite some time off my free time, especially this week being a critical week to get all our project purchase orders submitted in time for the project vetting next week. I initially planned to push the submission almost 2 weeks ago, but was set back but doubts our supervisor had over our design, being faced with changes and reaction from unrealistic project quotes from external fabricators to simplify our design. Nevertheless we got a final quote within our budget and a purchase order will be sent on the way. Glad our team can see this coming as it had been a very tough time pushing the orders in to be approved. Till now, I can’t provide more details on our project as it’s getting quite competitive in the gaming simulation area, just be rest assured that it will definitely be am exclusive show stopper in the upcoming Spinnovex 2008.

The last 2 project weeks saw disappointment being unable to submit our fabrication and parts order due to red tape in our school system and financial department to raise project budget. Hope things goes better this week.

Monday saw the first time we managed to get the actual simulator system running with few parts borrowed all round campus, which is mainly a proving point to our lecturer that things can be done/workable and we can finally move on with our project by confirming the quotations and the parts we require. We managed to source out a few other external vendors so we can raise 3 quotations in order to request for the budget. These few vendors also offered to do the job within our price range, but unexplainably there are always one or 2 who will always quote so high compared to the rest for the same job, funny makes you wonder are they cheating you or you will start to doubt the cheaper ones for a shabby job.

Despite being about 2 weeks behind schedule (this week is week 5), time was made up by pushing future work to be done now. I had to find work for my team to do during his eye of the storm if not everybody will loose their momentum and won’t be as motivated and driven as our first week. However, there are still limits to what we can do till the design is finalised, so finally tying down the final requirements for the pneumatics system will see the start of all the orders going in and finalizing of the design, till then, finally we can start on the media related materials which was left hanging on hold since 2 weeks ago.

Didn’t run much this week, due to lots of chores, work and projects to be done, man I should not let work eat into my lifestyle…

Got an unexpected call from Cousin Gordon last Sunday telling me about expanding his home internet network for two PCs from one, only that he does not know how to go about doing it. He is currently on Singnet broadband and recently renewed his contract, to his dismay he did not even receive any offers or freebies on the 1500kps plan, contrary to the free subscription and modem from my 3.5Mps network at home. I remember reading somewhere that even 1Mps plans get an ipod nano free, funny why he did not receive anything.

I once handled him a spare ADSL modem and router few years ago since I’ve upgraded to a gateway, and it’s starting to come in handy now - dropped by their home after school today and got their network up in a jiffy 30mins, something which I know at the back of my hand after years of troubleshooting but something Gordon claimed he would scratch his head pondering the whole day to set up. I guess everyone will have to start from somewhere.

Their family invited me to stay over for the evening with dinner, but their mum was to busy to cook, so it’s a whole family eat out at a nearby coffee shop ze-cha resturant. up so it’s me with the whole puah family including Benjamin Puah, aka Ben Puah the local President’s Young Talent exhibitionist. Being all working professionals, we caught up on times and happenings around us. Glad I found time to drop by.

Today is the first IVP day but could not make it to Gombak due to a tight agenda on my side, but the weather was very good for a track and field event today. Was around the Suntec area instead to attend an exhibition there and also on top of looking for a 3 multiscreen monitor mount for my Final Year Project gaming platform, but could not find any at all, even Carrefour don’t have it. I think the next best place would be Funan for such specialty product, even Simlim does not have it. Come worse to worse, I might need to fabricate my own in the workshop.

On the JobCentral Jobfair going on at the Suntec Convention center, the scary thing were the queues and the need to register to enter the exhibition area itself. Inconvenient, but that very much kept the crowd levels in the area very manageable.

Met my student development officer Ning who was at the fair too, being there on her own accord (the school didn’t send her in) with a friend I was surprised to find her there as well. We chatted on few issues namely the lower attendance and the possibility of me being unable to go on this year’s upcoming Medan Community service trip just like what we did last year helping children and elderly homes.

Alot of Suntec had changed too - the family link walk is now a lifestyle store area, Harley Norman is now an IT hub area and the kopitiam at the convention center is now like a food court with a very cool colonial setting. Collected my New balance real run race pack at Novena before popping by Orchard for the last league for today and dinner with my mum who was around the area (beside the rather interesting road side performances). Sheena was away with her school friends in Vivo.

Last but not least, got to play with a demo model of the N95 8GB in the various Nokia Stores I passed by today, namely around Suntec and Orchard. Got the word officially from Nokia Singapore staff that the N95 8GB will be out next week! (1st week of November) Retailing at $1244 without any contract.

First off, sorry for not updating for about a week. It had been a very very busy week with projects and doing 8-5 in the school project center. That took quite alot of time away from blogging, or just say I’ve not actually got into the regular habit or doing it with this new timetable, despite being in front of the computer working most of the time.

Nevertheless, in response to the various “OMG is Polar really that bad?” queries, apparently, it seems that the problems in distance measures seem to go away when I wear the footpod on my left foot. Largely yet strangely, I think it had something to do with how to fasten the footpod onto the shoe - as you know shoelaces tend to concave on top of your foot, it makes some kind of a semi circular “slider rail” which can cause the footpod to slide slanted to either side from the top center position, and since the footpod is a G-accelerometer device when that happens, there goes your distance measurements.

You can’t deny that there will be a variation each time you clip the footpod on, not to mention over the shoes you rotate for running, as it won’t sit in the exalt same position every time. The trick is to get to footpod to be locked into as many laces as possible, as far up front, so it will stay snuggly where it should be - on the top and center of your shoe, with that, you can minimise the errors you get from position variations. Of course this error won’t be as much as choosing to cut more corners in your route, it can be actually neglected. I tried it on separate runs without removing the footpod from my shoe at all and the distances vary about 1%, adjust the positions and the variations increase by up to 2%.

Of course there may be some other factors causing your footpod not to swing in a straight line, such as gait over/under pronation but often yield a slight 2-3% of the actual distance (that is where the footpod calibration factor comes into play).

All my runs now are at 1.000 calibration factor and distances are about 0.97% off the satelite distances I run. Not bad, wold be keeping more in the loop on future runs.

Woot, crossed the 800km mark for this year! 200km more to go for 1000km!

Was at Vivocity last Saturday while my parents are round there to do some regular grocery shopping in the area. Interesting in the fresh produce section, they have these signboards in front of every dustbin saying you can throw away anything which you find bad, rotten or not to standard. Won’t be surprised if we see people throwing anything into those bins!

FYP update
The thing with FYP now is lots of devotion spent into it, in fact as with my last weekend, almost working 7 days a week on it. Even making use of my free time out while shopping to check prices of any hardware store I come by “on the way” to search for prices to quote. I think it’s starting to get to me. Otherwise timeline-wise, the 2nd project week was rather slow as we had to deal and sort out contacts we needed for out projects. But things are expected to pick up this week when we send in our finalized designs in requirements to the fabricators and companies involved in providing the parts we require.

The project is just starting to get rather interesting now.

Brought out my RS400sd for a calibration run last Wednesday and it came out rather interesting distances, infact rather different from the distances I measured from google earth. Before my footpod days, I used to use google earth and pacing to gauge distances. However the thing with satellite images is that they are all flattened images, so distance measurements are all linear, ignoring vertical relief and terrain. So technically actual distances for a contoured run can vary to 10% more the actual google earth measured distance. Having a footpod and running computer will not only eliminate the error base don contours but also reduces the hassle of post race distance measurements/route planning.

Interestingly, on the footpod’s maiden run at the Ulu-Pandan park connector last Friday, it read 1.67km on a marked 2km stretch and 1.64km on the return, so that’s a 84% error, far off the claimed distance polar gave at 95% error. Not satisfied, I brought it down to a stadium track and did 400s there. It yielded 340/400m for clockwise loop and a similar 340/400 for anti-clockwise loop, still a 85% error. Bringing the calibration factor to about 1.1925. All these tests are conducted with the S1 mounted on my right foot.

Brought my baby down for my usual Sunday run at the Alexandra park connector, doing a google earth measured 16.7km run with the new calibration factor. This time having the footpod mounted on my left foot, the watch gave a 21.2km distance. Now it seems that the 1.000 calibration factor is more accurate! what is going on?

Initially I wanted to bring it on a treadmill to calibrate, but it turned out that it’s not a good idea to do so as treadmill themselves have to be calibrated as well. (Thanks to the SGrunners for the advice!)

It will be a few more runs and trail and error before I get the final magic number which suits me. So till I get my footpod properly calibrated, distance measurements for my weekly runs are still based off the satellite measurements from google earth: