End of my 16 weeks internship. Surprisingly, it have been already about 4 months since i last joined CUTE Center as a poly student and in a blink of an eye, im done. I think i was really too busy doing that period to even notice the things i have done. While everyone is going off from the company, im going to carry on doing this inernship till April. Since i have the major healthcare project on my hands, i decided not to forgo this job yet. So that means i have a few more months to go before im officially done.
For the past weeks, i have been doing the same things, getting interviews from friends and lecturers. I have also been trying to link up with doctors such as chiropractor and hysiotherapists to see what their opinion and comments on these projects. I have also been constantly improving my prototype so that people can get an image of how the technology can actually help them improve their posture. From the interviews, we further validated our idea that posture tracking and back problems have a huge potential over the world. We found out that with an active lifestyle, your back actually wont hurt as much however with the busy schedule of everyones work, we tend to neglect health and go for money or work. DUe to the high stress and costs of living in Singapore, everyone is forced to work at their best or get eliminated over time. I tried to fine tune my Unity 3D image of the spine and attaching the script on to it so that it would move in real time to the motion sensor,
Over the last 16 weeks, looking back, i actually am pretty amazed at the stuff that i am actually doing at the research center. In a way that none of the people from my age are actually involved in the whole process of product development. From sourcing to materials, to the hardware and software, and even the applications. I also had to think of business models and how we were going to sell or commercialize our product. From that i also mixed myself with researchers and business men to adapt myself into their thinking and come out with my own unique set of skills and thinking of a business savy engineer.
The experience i have gained really upgrade and improve me as not only an engineer but also a entrepreneur. I also found out that actually the skills that the modules in poly equip you is sufficient for you to start on a project however what skills you are going to learn to improve your final product depends on yourself, the creator. I also learned that Google or the internet is really your best friend if you want t learn something new. Do not expect your supervisors to teach or spoon feed you everything. However i do not want to forget the guidance that my supervisor, Yuichiro and Daniel and my director of CUTE Center, Prof Do for guiding me along the way and also truely believing in me to come out with a new product. They also trust me to purchase products which i truly find that is useful.
I look forward to the second part of my internship and really hope at the end of the day, i could come out with a product that is truly needed in the market and can help solve a certain problem or need in the world currently. And not only improving my engineering skills, i also want to leverage on it to build a product based start up in the future.
Friday, 13 February 2015
Wednesday, 4 February 2015
Internship week 15
The fifteenth week of my internship at KEIO NUS CUTE Center. My internship is going to come to end soon but however i will be carrying on with CUTE Center till April under casual employment. Since i have this sub project under me, i felt that it is a waste that the project will be left hanging once i left on the 7th February. I also wanted to leave on a high note thus my supervisor and i came out with an agreement that i should work towards a finished prototype of the product and complete the Lean Launch Pad(LLP) program before i left for enlistment for army.
Talking about the LLP program, this marks the third week of the program and the progress of the product and interviews are increasing steadily. We presented the interview findings from the second week to the audience. We interviewed a few groups of people, the younger, older and sports professionals because this was our initial customer segments. The results that we got were even more interesting as we found out that this idea has a great potential in the market as most of our interviewees have recurring back problems. We also found out that most people were actually ignoring the initial pain and not seeking professional advice as the cost of seeking those treatment is too high.
Another interesting interview we had this week was actually with a contact from the LLP program. We linked up with a physiotherapist from SIT, Dr Benjamin Soon and we got quite a few interesting suggestions from him. He also encouraged us to go into this application as back problems are an increasing trend in Singapore. There are more and more Singaporeans who visit him for physiotherapy session over the years. Even more kids are getting the problem of scoliosis which is the curvature of the spine due to improper posture.
Regarding the design of the product, he advised us to think of ways of improving our design of the product to be able to cover more degrees of freedom as the spine was able to move in many directions and rotations. He also advised us to make the device smaller as it would be annoying to the user if the product was too bulky and nobody would bother to use it
Regarding the applications of our product. he suggested we split our product into two categories. One is a consumer product and the other is a medical diagnostics kind of equipment but told us to tread cautiously inot the second portion as it would be hard to get the authorities to allow this without proper testing and documentation. He also suggested another application of Tele-Rehab which is an up and coming technology used for rehabilitation of patients who are not that mobile such as diabetic patients.
We also got quite many ideas on hw to improve and who should really be our target market. Thus with all the interview results and findings, we edited our initial BMC and filled it up with the edited hypothesis, and invalidating some of the old ones as the interviews till now have shown a trend that the hypothesis is wrong.
Also i have not been slacking on the part of the prototype, we have thought of how to use the potentiometers to map the angles on each individual hinge design that we were initially thinking of. Also we had to think of another idea in which we would be able to get more degree of freedom as compared to the initial idea. My whole team then sat down to discuss how we could improve the product further and make it smaller.
That simply sums up the second last week of my official internship at CUTE Center as i have been going around Singapore to get interviews from potential customers and professionals. We were also beginning to target distributors of these kind of health products as we could see what is actually the real driving force for them to ush our products out to the market.
Talking about the LLP program, this marks the third week of the program and the progress of the product and interviews are increasing steadily. We presented the interview findings from the second week to the audience. We interviewed a few groups of people, the younger, older and sports professionals because this was our initial customer segments. The results that we got were even more interesting as we found out that this idea has a great potential in the market as most of our interviewees have recurring back problems. We also found out that most people were actually ignoring the initial pain and not seeking professional advice as the cost of seeking those treatment is too high.
Another interesting interview we had this week was actually with a contact from the LLP program. We linked up with a physiotherapist from SIT, Dr Benjamin Soon and we got quite a few interesting suggestions from him. He also encouraged us to go into this application as back problems are an increasing trend in Singapore. There are more and more Singaporeans who visit him for physiotherapy session over the years. Even more kids are getting the problem of scoliosis which is the curvature of the spine due to improper posture.
Regarding the design of the product, he advised us to think of ways of improving our design of the product to be able to cover more degrees of freedom as the spine was able to move in many directions and rotations. He also advised us to make the device smaller as it would be annoying to the user if the product was too bulky and nobody would bother to use it
Regarding the applications of our product. he suggested we split our product into two categories. One is a consumer product and the other is a medical diagnostics kind of equipment but told us to tread cautiously inot the second portion as it would be hard to get the authorities to allow this without proper testing and documentation. He also suggested another application of Tele-Rehab which is an up and coming technology used for rehabilitation of patients who are not that mobile such as diabetic patients.
We also got quite many ideas on hw to improve and who should really be our target market. Thus with all the interview results and findings, we edited our initial BMC and filled it up with the edited hypothesis, and invalidating some of the old ones as the interviews till now have shown a trend that the hypothesis is wrong.
Also i have not been slacking on the part of the prototype, we have thought of how to use the potentiometers to map the angles on each individual hinge design that we were initially thinking of. Also we had to think of another idea in which we would be able to get more degree of freedom as compared to the initial idea. My whole team then sat down to discuss how we could improve the product further and make it smaller.
That simply sums up the second last week of my official internship at CUTE Center as i have been going around Singapore to get interviews from potential customers and professionals. We were also beginning to target distributors of these kind of health products as we could see what is actually the real driving force for them to ush our products out to the market.
Thursday, 29 January 2015
internship week 14
The fourteen week of my internship at KEIO NUS CUTE Center. This marks the second week of my LLP workshop which I have been doing. After the first pivot of our product in the second week, we were busy testing out the target market and whether there is really potential in this market. We also had to present the interview findings of the interviews that we had done in the previous weeks. I collected a few results from school such as Mr Chia, Mr Chee and Mr Roger and the feedback which I received from them was very encouraging. We also collected a few of my partner MBA classmates and a few others which I could find in IDMI and CUTE. We had to collect s total of 10 interviews every week. We found out that actually both back and neck problems have been a problematic illness in many offices. People are actually paying huge bucks to treat their back problem, be it western doctors or TCM. Everyone we interviewed was actually interested in a posture tracking device, with some preferring a multi purpose device with health and the younger half with fitness. This response just encouraged us to dig further in depth as it proved that there was a huge market and people are not aware of the ways of prevention. We then presented our findings to the audience in the evening session and they were quite impressed we could get a total of 20 interviews by the second week. The comments were for us to go and talk to professionals such as physiotherapist and chiropractor to see the viability of our product.
I also had to think of how to come out with the prototype for our product, we had two ways of doing so, whether using potentiometers or IMUs. I also researched on the various methods to link up a chain of these devices. Being an engineer, I feel very unsecure without s prototype as the same group of people would question us about our solution every week. My supervisor then ordered a bag of 25 potentiometers and passes it to me on Friday and told me to play with it. He suggested that i came up with a chain kind of design so that I would be able to link 6 of it together and it would go down your back.
We also had our weekly meeting in which we discussed the way forward for our product and what we should focus on this week. We managed to plan an appointment with a physiotherapists from SIT, Dr Benjamin on Friday and our whole group agreed we should go down together as it was a very important one as we could get a more in depth understanding about the injuries and back pain in Singaporeans nowadays. To our surprise p, he was very interested in our project and gave us many constructive feedbacks such as the restriction of movement of our design and asked us to think further to see if we had any other way of doing the product.
We compiled all the interview findings and prepared the PowerPoint which we were going to present the following week.
That sums up the very busy fourteen week of my internship. My internship is slowly coming to an end but I would continue with this job until the end of this workshop as my supervisor felt that I should really take charge of this project and should complete it before I leave. I was very happy as I felt appreciated for all the hard work which I have put in over the course of my internship
I also had to think of how to come out with the prototype for our product, we had two ways of doing so, whether using potentiometers or IMUs. I also researched on the various methods to link up a chain of these devices. Being an engineer, I feel very unsecure without s prototype as the same group of people would question us about our solution every week. My supervisor then ordered a bag of 25 potentiometers and passes it to me on Friday and told me to play with it. He suggested that i came up with a chain kind of design so that I would be able to link 6 of it together and it would go down your back.
We also had our weekly meeting in which we discussed the way forward for our product and what we should focus on this week. We managed to plan an appointment with a physiotherapists from SIT, Dr Benjamin on Friday and our whole group agreed we should go down together as it was a very important one as we could get a more in depth understanding about the injuries and back pain in Singaporeans nowadays. To our surprise p, he was very interested in our project and gave us many constructive feedbacks such as the restriction of movement of our design and asked us to think further to see if we had any other way of doing the product.
We compiled all the interview findings and prepared the PowerPoint which we were going to present the following week.
That sums up the very busy fourteen week of my internship. My internship is slowly coming to an end but I would continue with this job until the end of this workshop as my supervisor felt that I should really take charge of this project and should complete it before I leave. I was very happy as I felt appreciated for all the hard work which I have put in over the course of my internship
Wednesday, 21 January 2015
Internship week 13
The thirteen week of my internship. This week marks the first week of the ten week LLP program. The program starts off with a two day workshop. We have to present our idea or product to the audience. Me and my partner introduced our prototype and with the slides explained our idea and the initial target market in which we were targeting. We also present to them our initial Business Model Canvas (BMC) filled with our initial hypothesis. The feedback that we got from the crowd totally shot us down, with many people unclear and not sure what our group what doing. they suggested to us to scope down on our application use and target a certain market or industry in the market. The director of CUTE Center, Prof Ellen Do was clearly not happy and she expressed her displeasure during a meeting after our presentation. She also expressed in which way we should improve our product and presentation skills. The good thing about LLP program is they give you the ability to grade your peers presentation online and give them comments. We also received many mixed comments but mostly shooting us down. We thus met up with our mentor, Margaret Ong to discuss what is our way forward and she suggested we focus on the healthcare and rehab industry as she found the hinge design that we were using looks like the blades of the spine and we could use it to track posture as back pain/problem is one of the increasing trends in the market and there would be a huge market for our product. So we pivoted on the first day and we had to change our whole idea. What my supervisor asked us to do was to come out with new presentation slides introducing our idea again and giving background and introduction.
The workshop ended at 6 and my partner and i planned the schedule for the next day. We had to conduct a few initial interviews the next morning and had to come out with a presentation for the afternoon session. We planned a few interviews with friends and colleagues as we only had limited time.The remarks from the first day really encouraged me to do better the next day, i do not want them to look down on a polytechnic student and that i could do better than all of them. Thus i spent the whole night editing the slides.
The second day of the workshop. We did our initial interviews and listed the interview results on the presentation and uploaded it onto the online portal. My partner had MBA classes so i was left all alone to present. I was nervous but i knew that this had no difference from the presentations i did in school and i started. At the end of the presentation, i heaved a sigh of relief as there were smiles around the room. The audience finally understood our comments, and with many positive feedback coming in. Even Prof Do was satisfied with my performance and that really meant something to me as all my hard work finally paid off. Ironically, the comments coming from the crowd was that we were too specific today and they recommended us to scope up again as they were endless possibilities for our product. Some even asked us to go into military and elderly applications.
The rest of the week was spent gathering the interviews required for next week as we had to have 10 interviews per week.I even came to school to get interviews from< Mr Chia, Mr Chee and Mr Roger as i found that they met certain requirements of my target market. I also intrduced my product and the workshop i have been doing now. I find that this is really the spirit of DEB in which you create a product wth your technical skills and at the same time, you also have to sell your idea to the audience. You also have to use interpersonal skills when conducting interviews and most of these skills were learnt from many modules over the years. I finally find that the things i learn is useful and i could apply it to my daily work.
I also spent some time of the week to start doing my poster and the productivity+U report which were going to be due soon.
That sums up the thirteen week of my internship.
The workshop ended at 6 and my partner and i planned the schedule for the next day. We had to conduct a few initial interviews the next morning and had to come out with a presentation for the afternoon session. We planned a few interviews with friends and colleagues as we only had limited time.The remarks from the first day really encouraged me to do better the next day, i do not want them to look down on a polytechnic student and that i could do better than all of them. Thus i spent the whole night editing the slides.
The second day of the workshop. We did our initial interviews and listed the interview results on the presentation and uploaded it onto the online portal. My partner had MBA classes so i was left all alone to present. I was nervous but i knew that this had no difference from the presentations i did in school and i started. At the end of the presentation, i heaved a sigh of relief as there were smiles around the room. The audience finally understood our comments, and with many positive feedback coming in. Even Prof Do was satisfied with my performance and that really meant something to me as all my hard work finally paid off. Ironically, the comments coming from the crowd was that we were too specific today and they recommended us to scope up again as they were endless possibilities for our product. Some even asked us to go into military and elderly applications.
The rest of the week was spent gathering the interviews required for next week as we had to have 10 interviews per week.I even came to school to get interviews from< Mr Chia, Mr Chee and Mr Roger as i found that they met certain requirements of my target market. I also intrduced my product and the workshop i have been doing now. I find that this is really the spirit of DEB in which you create a product wth your technical skills and at the same time, you also have to sell your idea to the audience. You also have to use interpersonal skills when conducting interviews and most of these skills were learnt from many modules over the years. I finally find that the things i learn is useful and i could apply it to my daily work.
I also spent some time of the week to start doing my poster and the productivity+U report which were going to be due soon.
That sums up the thirteen week of my internship.
Thursday, 15 January 2015
Internship week 12
The twelfth week of my internship here at NUS KEIO CUTE Center. The things that i have been doing really gets more and more interesting. This week was used to prepare my team and i for the LeanLaunchPad(LLP) workshop which we would attend next week. This workshop was actually planned by the Enterprise Center of NUS as a form of market discovery of the product hat we would be doing. We had to come out with a presentation to introduce our product and applications to the audience there which consists of groups from different fields. Each faculty has to come out with 5 teams and my team were one of the 5 teams that were representing the faculty of engineering. Our idea would be to sell the idea of the product which was the thing i have been doing for the past 9 to 10 weeks.
So i had been doing the hardware soldering of the MCU( micro-controller unit) and when i was done with all the components, i decided to attach it into the 3D printed casing which i had done a few weeks ago, however when i was unable to do it. The case was too small and unable to fit thus i had to print another casing. It was easier this time as i did not have to come to Singapore Polytechnic to get it done as i could use the 3D printer which was available in our lab. I had to designed a case which was bigger and more hollow so that it could fit the whole hardware.
When i was doing this hardware portion, i did not forget the software portion of my device. I was continuing my research on the health side such as the different kinds of sensor which could be incorporated into a health care watch or wearable. I also found a few environment monitoring device which was able to measure carbon monoxide and dust which was the thigs which could harm you.
The last part of this week would be to prepare my presentations for LLP, i had to come out with a powerpoint slide to explain the technology and background of our device and which problems or target market we were going to focus on. We also had to fill up the Business Model Canvas with our initial hypothesis that we were going to try out in the market.
This wraps up the twelfth week of my internship. I really had to cover all parts of the product, from design to construction and to think of how to sell it to that LLP crowd. I found it quite interesting as it was really the spirit of DEB and that the info that i learned in Poly would come into great use
Wednesday, 7 January 2015
Internship week 11
The eleventh week of my internship at NUS CUTE center
Still carrying on with the hardware portion of my product, i soldered on the LCD screen and the IMU unit (inertial measurement unit), i had to ensure that it all works before carrying on to do the programming part. This can help me train my soldering skills and through this internship, my soldering skills have improved as compared to my initial skills before. I also tried combining all the codes of the Arduino so that it could all work conconccurently without it failing.
The other part of my week here would be to research on the health sensors which was available in the market. I had to provide a list of sensors in which i think could be used if we were going into the health wearable industry, to my supervisor. I found out that there were many sensors which were still not present in wearable such as smartwatches, such as carbon monoxide sensors and GSR (galvanatic skin response) which can used to monitor the user and its environment which were the types of sensors we were targeting. However due to the price of the device, i had to consult my supervisor before purchasing any of them. My supervisor was back in Japan celebrating the New Year thus i had to push it to next week.
This was a three day work week due to the NUS holidays on both the eve and the actual New Years Day. I only had time to do the above tasks for this week. Also i had to prepare for the upcoming LLP(Lean LaunchPad) workshop which i would be participating under NUS with my product. I had to go online to read up on the materials such as the lean business model canvas and the business startup advices.
This sums up the eleventh week of my internship.
Still carrying on with the hardware portion of my product, i soldered on the LCD screen and the IMU unit (inertial measurement unit), i had to ensure that it all works before carrying on to do the programming part. This can help me train my soldering skills and through this internship, my soldering skills have improved as compared to my initial skills before. I also tried combining all the codes of the Arduino so that it could all work conconccurently without it failing.
The other part of my week here would be to research on the health sensors which was available in the market. I had to provide a list of sensors in which i think could be used if we were going into the health wearable industry, to my supervisor. I found out that there were many sensors which were still not present in wearable such as smartwatches, such as carbon monoxide sensors and GSR (galvanatic skin response) which can used to monitor the user and its environment which were the types of sensors we were targeting. However due to the price of the device, i had to consult my supervisor before purchasing any of them. My supervisor was back in Japan celebrating the New Year thus i had to push it to next week.
This was a three day work week due to the NUS holidays on both the eve and the actual New Years Day. I only had time to do the above tasks for this week. Also i had to prepare for the upcoming LLP(Lean LaunchPad) workshop which i would be participating under NUS with my product. I had to go online to read up on the materials such as the lean business model canvas and the business startup advices.
This sums up the eleventh week of my internship.
Monday, 5 January 2015
Internship week 10
The tenth week of my internship at NUS KEIO CUTE Center.
As i have been focusing much of my time of the software portion of my project for the past few weeks, i have decided to use this week for more implementation of my project into the hardware part. i soldered on the switch to the blend micro board and ensured that the switch would work on the programme triggering it as an input so that i could use it in the final product.
As one of the objectives for our product would be to productize and commercialize this product so that we can sell it. My supervisor Daniel instructed me to think of a unique IP (intellectual property) for our new product. We were actually utilizing our existing IP however we were working with too many partners such as SUTD and the Co-foundry that there may be areea of conflict if we ventured into future developments for our current product. He then advised me to come out with a new idea so that we could patent it so that we could be an independent entity without worrying about affecting others. I then researched on how we could do to achieve a strong IP and found out that we could capitalise on a few areas such as flexibility and adaptability of our product which was somewhat our USP for our product. i also researched on certain plug and play platform such as SeeedStudio's Grove and Xadow which provides these certain functions.
On Wednesday, it was Christmas eve, i met up with my supervisor on how we should carry on moving forward. I suggested we go into two different industries one for the entertainment side which is the smartwatch used as a game console which is the current product i am currently working on and a side product which is the smartwatch which could be used as a health and first aid tools. As the smartwatch industry is already very crowded with different powerhouses in the market, it would be a hard market to break into as there are many present competitors and ur product does not stand out too much compared to the other devices. We decided to go into a type of smartwatch which is really aware of your environment and would advice you on certain prevention methods that would help you in your health. Such as heart rate monitors and temperature sensors that would provide you with digital health readings to help your daily life. My supervisor then advised me to continue my research on the health wise smartwatch industry. He then asked me to find certain sensors which could be helpful in the applications of our product.
I decided to carry on my hardware construction portion next week and focus on the research as it was an interesting area or field which i wanted to explore. I found out many interesting kinds of sensors which would be useful and added it into a list which i would show my supervisor when he was back from his annual holiday.
This sums up my week 10 of my internship here. In a blink of an eye, i only have four weeks left. I have to step up my progress on the product so that i could present it in the final presentation.
As i have been focusing much of my time of the software portion of my project for the past few weeks, i have decided to use this week for more implementation of my project into the hardware part. i soldered on the switch to the blend micro board and ensured that the switch would work on the programme triggering it as an input so that i could use it in the final product.
As one of the objectives for our product would be to productize and commercialize this product so that we can sell it. My supervisor Daniel instructed me to think of a unique IP (intellectual property) for our new product. We were actually utilizing our existing IP however we were working with too many partners such as SUTD and the Co-foundry that there may be areea of conflict if we ventured into future developments for our current product. He then advised me to come out with a new idea so that we could patent it so that we could be an independent entity without worrying about affecting others. I then researched on how we could do to achieve a strong IP and found out that we could capitalise on a few areas such as flexibility and adaptability of our product which was somewhat our USP for our product. i also researched on certain plug and play platform such as SeeedStudio's Grove and Xadow which provides these certain functions.
On Wednesday, it was Christmas eve, i met up with my supervisor on how we should carry on moving forward. I suggested we go into two different industries one for the entertainment side which is the smartwatch used as a game console which is the current product i am currently working on and a side product which is the smartwatch which could be used as a health and first aid tools. As the smartwatch industry is already very crowded with different powerhouses in the market, it would be a hard market to break into as there are many present competitors and ur product does not stand out too much compared to the other devices. We decided to go into a type of smartwatch which is really aware of your environment and would advice you on certain prevention methods that would help you in your health. Such as heart rate monitors and temperature sensors that would provide you with digital health readings to help your daily life. My supervisor then advised me to continue my research on the health wise smartwatch industry. He then asked me to find certain sensors which could be helpful in the applications of our product.
I decided to carry on my hardware construction portion next week and focus on the research as it was an interesting area or field which i wanted to explore. I found out many interesting kinds of sensors which would be useful and added it into a list which i would show my supervisor when he was back from his annual holiday.
This sums up my week 10 of my internship here. In a blink of an eye, i only have four weeks left. I have to step up my progress on the product so that i could present it in the final presentation.
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