TecHKU » Vaibhav Bahadur https://www.engineering.hku.hk/tecHKU The HKU Community of Technology Tue, 12 Jun 2018 08:03:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2 Solar Power — The Organic Dimension https://www.engineering.hku.hk/tecHKU/2014/04/30/solar-power-the-organic-dimension/ https://www.engineering.hku.hk/tecHKU/2014/04/30/solar-power-the-organic-dimension/#comments Tue, 29 Apr 2014 18:40:56 +0000 http://www.engineering.hku.hk/tecHKU/?p=2025 by Disha Jain and Baibhav Bahadur | Photo Credits: Turab Raza | 30 April 2014

The Insider’s Report on Turab Raza’s Final Year Project

Renewable Energy is the new fad of the world. Countries like Germany and Denmark are slowly moving towards 100% renewable supply. China projects that by 2020 15% of its power needs will be renewable generated.

CLP in research with HKUST have identified suitable sites for creating wind farms. They project supplying up to 200 MW of energy, which is still a mere 1% of the total HK need. While Solar Energy is abundant in Hong Kong, the sustainability of harvesting such energy is bleak in one of the most densely populated regions.

Turab

Turab Raza, Electrical Engineering, Class of 2014


Regnant Practice

Conventional Solar Technology utilizes semiconductors (especially silicon) to capture (light) photons’ energy which then charges the battery. But Silicon can only capture a certain spectrum of electromagnetic waves (remember, visible light is just a small fraction of the whole spectrum).

Scientists are developing alternative technologies and utilizing alternate materials like plastics to increase the efficiency of the solar cell.

The Future: HKU’s Story

Our team discussed upcoming Solar Technology innovations with Turab Raza, a final year Electrical Engineering student. In the Engineering faculty all students work on a final year project (FYP), which runs through the whole year. Turab is doing an FYP on Organic Solar Cells under the guidance of Dr. Wallace Choy, associate Professor in the EEE department.

Final year projects are a popular feature of the curriculum throughout the world. Technology and Research companies throughout the world are interested in FYPs and are even ready to purchase them from the team while offering jobs to the candidates.

Using a success story from Hong Kong, former City University student Mr. Francis Kwong decided to work on ‘Semantic Web’ – a relatively new concept in 2002. He entered his research to the IEEHK YMS competition and won 2 scholarships totally worth HK$250,000 per year, renewable till he finishes his PhD.

Photo1

How to create the Magic?

Turab’s work involves testing different materials as substitute for silicon in a solar cell. While the work may seem straightforward it is similar to Edison’s quest to find the optimum material for a light bulb. In a description of his regular duty, he performs one simple process once or twice every week. This process takes a whopping 12 hours each time!

1. Clean the substrate (special glass piece) using acetone and ethanol until it is squeaky clean
    (which can take up to an hour!)
2. Evaporate the organic material onto the substrate and place it in a vacuum
    (Gradually a cell with positive and negative poles will form)
3. Measure the power across this cell
4. Place the cell under a Sun Simulator and measure the efficiency

Advisor – Your new Best Friend!

Turab has been working under his advisor, Dr. Choy since his second year as a Research Assistant (RA).
“The role of an Advisor is crucial to your FYP as they determine your pace of work while offering guidance and support.” Said Turab, “I meet my advisor 2 to 3 times a week.”

Advice to Juniors

For juniors, he advises them to select a FYP topic by the end of the penultimate year. To do this, the students should talk to various professors about their work and decide on what they want to do in the year ahead.

The work on organic solar cells still continues; Turab could not certainly say if his project would see the light of the day or fade into oblivion – such is the unpredictability of research. It is the exhaustive scenario in parallel with what Edison said on his invention, “I now know 999 ways a light bulb wouldn’t light up”.

Your Chance to Gape!

HKU’s Final Year Projects will be on public display in the beginning of May – a great chance to absorb new ideas implemented by HKU’s final year students. Talking to the students themselves and learning their stories is especially useful for engineering and research students.

Disha Jain

Disha Jain is a second year student in Electronics and Communications Engineering at HKU. She is a knowledge-seeker and a Bollywood fanatic. Happiness is her way of life.
disha_j25@hotmail.com

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Vaibhav Bahadur

A second year student in Computer Engineering at HKU. The kid philosopher, an avid reader, guitar enthusiast and cartoonist.
bahadur.vaibhav@gmail.com

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]]> https://www.engineering.hku.hk/tecHKU/2014/04/30/solar-power-the-organic-dimension/feed/ 0 A Tour of the HKU M2 Robotics Team Lab https://www.engineering.hku.hk/tecHKU/2014/03/30/a-tour-of-the-hku-m2-robotics-team-lab/ https://www.engineering.hku.hk/tecHKU/2014/03/30/a-tour-of-the-hku-m2-robotics-team-lab/#comments Sun, 30 Mar 2014 03:27:34 +0000 http://www.engineering.hku.hk/tecHKU/?p=1934 by Vaibhav Bahadur and Donald Lam | Photo Credits: Donald Lam | Also Contributing: James Lam | 30 March 2014

We paid a visit to the M2 Robotics lab when we interviewed Chim and Rita last semester for their work on the Team HKU Atlas.

Not hidden on purpose but unnoticed by thousands of HKU students passing by every day, the student run lab is hidden behind a turn along the steps from Pokfulam Road to the Composite Building elevators.

A Tour: The lab that never existed


1 The not-so-secret doorway is usually wide open. No, you are still not supposed to waltz in uninvited.
3 While the place may seem like a factory, members in the team personalize their space.

2Chim Lee explains the Electronics sphere of Robotics. Each circuit board may take upto 5-7 hrs to solder. One Robot has at least 30-50 of such boards which add up to a lot of hardwork and patience.

The team joined the Robocon competition this year. The theme of the 2014 Robocon is parenthood, so all tasks simulate playground activities for children with the help of a parent robot.

The team made exact prop replicas to prepare for the tasks:

4 A baby robot the team made is required to climb up to the top of this ladder.

5 Another task: The baby robot is required to walk on the pole walk set from one to the other till it reaches the end.

6 In this task the parent robot will put the baby on the swing and push it forward. The baby will need to maintain balance.

7At the back, is a see-saw that will have a similar parent & baby robots interaction.

8

By the expression on that box; someone definitely had a burst of creativity and put in some time to decorate the 3D printer in the lab.

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10

Chim Lee attaching together newly printed 3D pieces. The wonder of 3D printing: assembly complete in less than a minute.

11
We played with this 3D printed clockface.

15
A software simulation of a quadcopter on the powerful Gazebo software on Linux. Gazebo can do all kinds of robotics simulation, even the DRC Atlas uses it to test run new code.

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In a gazebo simulation, the quadcopter detects the impending object and turns around automatically.

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When the going gets tough, 24-7 McDonalds rescues the day!

The M2 Robotics lab is funded by the Mechanical Engineering Department. McDonalds takeaway not included.

Vaibhav Bahadur

A second year student in Computer Engineering at HKU. The kid philosopher, an avid reader, guitar enthusiast and cartoonist.
bahadur.vaibhav@gmail.com

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Donald Lam

Editor in Chief
A second year student in Computer Science at HKU. He owns a Nokia phone and is a bit of a Microsoft fanboy in denial.
dlamty@gmail.com

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]]> https://www.engineering.hku.hk/tecHKU/2014/03/30/a-tour-of-the-hku-m2-robotics-team-lab/feed/ 0 When UBS Holds a Competition https://www.engineering.hku.hk/tecHKU/2014/02/05/when-ubs-holds-a-competition/ https://www.engineering.hku.hk/tecHKU/2014/02/05/when-ubs-holds-a-competition/#comments Tue, 04 Feb 2014 16:30:53 +0000 http://www.engineering.hku.hk/tecHKU/?p=1108 by Rishabh Rastogi, Vaibhav Bahadur | Photo Credits: UBS | 5 February 2014

Internships are not the only things you can do during the summer breaks.

UBS, the global financial services company, organized a ‘UBS Group Technology Case Study Competition’ for undergraduates in Hong Kong during the past summer. UBS is the world’s largest manager of wealth according to rankings published by Scorpio Partnership last year.

With technology now an essential aspect of banking operations, international financial institutions like UBS typically make significant investment in technology. This Case Study Challenge was therefore a great opportunity, particularly for students majoring in technology-related disciplines, to visit the Hong Kong offices of a global firm and to showcase their skills to perhaps their potential employers.

Before Anything — the Competition Results

Out of the 25 teams that participated from across CUHK, HKUST, and HKU, 5 teams qualified for the second and final round of the competition- 3 from HKUST and 2 from HKU.

Then which university did the winning team emerge from?

Both teams from HKU who made it to the finals were among the winners of the top 3 prizes. However, this time, the First Prize was awarded to the team of students from HKUST.

Back to the Beginning — The Take Off

In May last year, participating students had to form teams of 3 and undergo 2 intense rounds of collaboration, brainstorming, and practice.

Additional info:

Prizes Offered

1st Prize

• Google Nexus 7 32GB Wi-Fi Tablet

• Mentorship with a senior UBS manager

• Lunch with UBS Head of Group Technology

• Guaranteed interview for the UBS Group Technology summer internship program

2nd Prize

• Mentorship with a senior UBS manager

• Lunch with UBS Head of Group Technology

3rd Prize

• Lunch with UBS Head of Group Technology

ubs_regular_rgb_26

In HKU, the Challenge was open to undergraduates majoring in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems or related disciplines, graduating in 2015 or 2016.

The first round – write a full report based on 1 of the 2 group technology case studies offered by UBS. Below are the 2 case studies summarized:

CASE STUDY 1:

An international firm faces communication and connectivity woes affecting daily operations and efficiency.

Propose a solution to integrate the different forms of communication (email, file sharing, social network) into a single internal communication platform.

CASE STUDY 2:

Internal trading system of a company is becoming inadequate and outdated.

Suggest the benefits of upgrading the existing system and how this would be executed.

Although students majoring in technology-related disciplines were encouraged to participate, they were expected to apply skills from across disciplines. Marcus Ma, an engineering student from the HKU team that won the Third Prize, commented that,

“The report was a bit challenging for our group since 2 non-BBA students were involved in my team…
We got sometimes confused about what should be included in the final report…”

The Final Stage – Preparing for the 52nd Floor

“Preparing for the presentation was amazing… All the time we spent and the late nights practising for it are things I will always remember.”

As Suyash Agarwal from the Second Prize winning team from HKU commented fondly, the excitement and anticipation escalated as the teams got ready for the last and most important day of the competition.

The final round took the teams up to the 52nd floor of Two ifc, the towering office building that houses major international firms such as Bain & Company, Bank of America, and, of course, UBS.

Where the Action Took Place

Second prize winners from HKU (from left):

Lee Kyung Min, Suyash Agarwal, Vikay Narayen.

On this floor of the UBS offices, the finalists geared up for a 20-minute presentation followed by a 10-minute Q&A session, with an intimidating panel of 5 senior Group Technology managers.

Suyash can recall moments from the final round.

“As members of the HKU Campus Toastmasters Club, my teammates and I were accustomed to speaking in front of an audience and the presentation went very smoothly. During the Q&A, the UBS senior managers directed a lot of specific and realistic questions at us that made it a challenge.”

According to Vikay Narayen, who was also part of the HKU team that won the Second Prize,

“Our team missed a critical element in our proposal.”

The lack of a timeline for the execution of the team’s proposal was highlighted during the Q&A by the senior managers and may have affected the team’s outcome in the Challenge.

A word of advice to students who will take part in competitions such as these — if you want to impress the panel, the trick is in the details!

In no time, the winning teams will be returning to the UBS offices once again, to attend a lunch with the UBS managers and to kickstart the mentorship programme.

About the Author

Rishabh Rastogi

Second Year, Electronic and Communications Engineering

rishabh.rastogi17@gmail.com

About the Author

Vaibhav Bahadur

Second Year, Computer Engineering

The Kid Philospher, Avid Reader, Guitar enthusiast, Cartoonist

bahadur.vaibhav@gmail.com

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