WEEK 8: The End of The Journey

Finally, we were coming to the end of the trimester. On the last class this afternoon, we had our last presentation for the subject and also the last presentation for my studies, perhaps! Yup, I'll be going for an internship on the next trimester and will be graduating on August 2009. We'll be get back to that topic later, but now I want to tell about today's presentation.

The final presentation for Assignment 2 was held at the same venue with our class before. It went smoothly except the projector can't work well at first. But, my groupmate Arif managed to call the CITS to fix it. For me, our group have presented very well, but actually I am too nervous and sometimes lost my words during the presentation. Ohh, poor me! Still can't dealing with nervousness although in the final year. *sigh*

Both of the lecturers have gave their comments on some parts that was unsatisfied them especially on the final solution. But, nevermind. I believe that we learn by making mistakes. The more we make mistakes, the more we learn. Practice makes perfect. But, wait! Nobody is perfect right? So, why practice? Hahahaha! Just kidding. :P

Allright, move on to the serious part. Since this is the end of the subject, I want to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Radzi and Ms. Helena for their valuable thoughts, opinions, supports and cooperations. Both of you were listed as my favorite lecturers and I will remember both of you forever. Please pray for my success in studies and also when I start working soon. And not to forget, please give me an 'A' for this subject. Is it too direct? Hahaha! OK, end it here. See you soon. Bye.

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Some pictures during our presentation:

(Credit to Fida for taking these pictures)

WEEK 8: It's Holiday Again!

I think, this trimester is kind of lucky for students because there are a lot of holidays that fell on the same day of our class. So, we can use this opportunity to rest and sleep for the whole day. :P Hehehe.. Today is a public holiday for "Awal Muharam" or "Maal Hijrah" which is celebrated by Muslims as the day symbolises two happy event in a Muslim's life. The start of Muslim year or calendar, Muharram, coincides with Prophet Muhammad's journey from Mecca to Medina on the first of Muharram in 622AD. To signify this occasion, Muslims attend to various religious activities, spiritual singing, religious meeting throughout the country. Got this informations from regit.com.

Besides sleeping and day dreaming for the whole day (it's for saving my energy to do the work later. hahaa..), I will not forgot to do the Assignment 2 for this subject. Tonight, our group will gather at the library foyer to discuss about the assignment. The final presentation will held on this coming Wednesday, so we need to prepare and get ready to present it to the lecturers. So, end it here. I'll update again sooner or later.

WEEK 7: Stepping Stone & What If Technique

Stepping Stone:
(Source: Lecture notes)

• involves taking advantage of other people's initial ideas or from one’s own ideas when trying to solve a problem.
• Ideas that are often discarded due to reasons which either they won't work, or because they are illogical.
• The concept of the stepping stone method is first to record these ‘crazy’ ideas, and than turn it into ideas that is workable and feasible.

What If Technique:
(Source: Lecture Notes)

• also known as escape method, is a provocative technique and can lead to spectacular new ideas and approaches to problems.
• Escape method encourages the doer in asking “what if” question as a way of looking for potential problems and opportunities.
• “what if” question might not lead to a practical idea, however the more often it is being practiced, the more productive it will become.

WEEK 7: Final Review

Nothing much today except the final review for our Assignment 2 - Thematic Project. And again, Mr. Radzi was alone without Ms. Helena as usual. He checked our work progress, gave some comments and corrected some grammar in our essay. He also asked to brainstorm for some new ideas and polish the previous one, so that we can came out with the best solution for our problem.

This is the second last class before the presentation next week. So, it just left a few days for us to work hard and give our best into this project. Since this is our last subject in MMU, we really hope that it will be going smoothly, so that we can score in this subject.

WEEK 7: Assignment Consultation

For today's class, there was only a consultation session regarding Assignment 2 with Mr. Radzi. He wanted to see our progress and we showed to him what we have done so far. We just done with Stage 3 which is the creative thinking method. Here there is:

Stage 3 – Creative Thinking Method/Technique

We have used the Random Image technique for our assignment. The random image was the police car or as known as the patrol car. We managed to come out with several ideas and lots of solutions regarding the problem that we proposed earlier.

WEEK 6: Anybody feeling hungry?

As one of my interest is eating and my new hobby is cooking, today I want to share something about the food. Have you ever heard about creative food art? Yes, the art using food plus some creativity. It is not impossible to create such a amazing art with just using the food. See the pictures below and enjoy the food! :P

Frogs on a rice. Anyone?

Goose

The giraffe

Starwars fan out there should try this.

What a beautiful garden! I'll think twice before eat this.


I'm sure Bill Gates had never think about this version of Windows XP.

Credit to toxel.com for all these beautiful pictures. I think that most of these food are from Japan. They manage to think a different way to make the food more interesting. But for me, all the foods looks great to see, but not to eat. It's totally awesome! Maybe one day I should try to create a design like this to my food, but this time by using Malaysian food. Hehehe..

WEEK 6: Logical Mind Map

Stage 1 – Logical Mind Map

We have chosen the home injuries among kids as our topic or problem for Assignment 2. After the brainstorming session among the group members, we have came out with this logical mind map.

WEEK 6: What's Your Problem?? - Part 2

Yeah! We have reached the 6th week of the trimester. The clock was ticking too fast, I think. Huhuu.. OK, forget about it, life must goes on right? So lets talk about today's class. This afternoon, we need to present the idea of a problem that we stuck on last week's class. Finally, we managed to come out with the rational ideas and the lecturers have approved it. Yeay! Thanks to Mr. Radzi and Ms. Helena for their opinions and suggestions. It was really helpful! So, our topic for the Assignment 2 is "Home Injuries Among Kids".

I believe that most of us have little brother or sister at home, right? It is not impossible to them to experience injuries at home. So, we want to do a research on how to prevent this home injuries or home accidents among kids. In addition, we planned to design a device that can avoid kids from getting near to dangerous place. Sound interesting? Want to know more about it? Stay tune to my blog and I'll be update the progress soon.

WEEK 5: Facts! Facts! Facts!

I want to share with you some interesting facts about our "Mr.Brain" up there. Yup! Some facts about human brain that we need to know:

1. Your brain uses 20% of your body's energy, but it makes up only 2% of your body's weight.
2. Your brain is about 1300-1400 cubic centimeters in volume, about the size of a cantaloupe and wrinkled like a walnut.
3. The brain feels like a ripe avocado and looks pink because of the blood flowing through it.
4. Your brain generates 25 watts of power while you're awake; enough to illuminate a light bulb. - Wow! No need to worry when there is a blackout. :P
5. A newborn baby's brain grows almost 3 times in course of first year.
6. Humans have the most complex brain of any animal on earth. - We deserved it!
7. Your brain is divided into two sides. The left side of your brain controls the right side of your body; and, the right side of your brain controls the left side of your body.
8. Toxins in commonplace items such as carpeting and shower curtains may be contributing to memory loss over time. - Huh? Really??
9. Overexposure to aluminum compounds—in foil, cookware, deodorants, antacids, toothpaste—can affect brain function. - Beware of it!
10. Lavender can help you sleep. - But I don't even need a lavender to sleep. :P
11. A cooked potato can jump-start your brain when you're feeling foggy. - Is it like jump-start the car? :P
12. The essential oil of jasmine can quickly restore mental alertness.
13. Eating foods rich in vitamin E, beta-carotene, and vitamin C may help lower your risk of Alzheimer's disease. - Should try this later.
14. Certain prescription and nonprescription drugs may dramatically affect your ability to concentrate.

All the facts I got from mamashealth.com. Hope that we learned something from the facts.

WEEK 5: What's Your Problem??

First of all, don't be too shocked with the title of this post. It's just a gimmic. Hahaa.. On last week's class, we were reminded to bring 1 problem to the next class, to be used in our Group Assignment - Thematic Project. So, this morning, me and my other groupmates (Arif, Liana, & Aina) have gathered and did a brainstorming session to find a suitable problem. After several discussions between us, we have decided to proposed this problem: "How to lose weight by eating high caloried-foods or junk food?".

In the class, we presented it to our lecturers and too bad they have rejected it. :-( Mr. Radzi said that it is quite difficult and involve certain biological research and some other reasons that I can't remember. He asked us to come out with new ideas and we managed to do it in just several minutes later! Haha.. Maybe we were too desperate on that time! :P By the way, these are some of the questions that we proposed:

1. Why are the numbers on a calculator reversed?
2. What does OK actually means?
3. What should one call a male ladybird?
4. What is the speed of dark?
5. Rather than using numbers, why not using symbols or something else on calculator or a phone?
6. And some other questions that I've forgot already. :P

And once again, all of those ideas were rejected because of it's not rational and may need a very complicated research on it. Finally, Mr. Radzi have given us a chance to go back and think again another rational ideas to use as our problem in the 2nd assignment. So, we need to present it again to the lecturer next week. *Sigh* Oh ya, Mr. Radzi also gave his own idea in brief to help and guide us in finding a new problem. Thanks Mr. Radzi! :-)

WEEK 5: Happy Eid Ul-Adha

No class for today since it is a holiday of Eid Ul-Adha or we called it "Aidil Adha" in Malay. This is a the feast of sacrifice celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ismail as an act of obedience to God. However, God provided a ram in place once Ibrahim demonstrated his willingness to follow God's commands.

That is a little bit of history behind the celebration of Eid Ul-Adha which is annually falls on the 10th day of the month of Zulhijjah in Islamic calendar. The festivities last for three days or more depending on the country. Eid Ul-Adha occurs the day after the pilgrims conducting Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Makkah in Saudi Arabia by Muslims worldwide. Besides that, Muslims who can afford to do so offer domestic animals, usually cow or goat, as a symbol of Ibrahim's sacrifice. The meat is distributed for consumption to family, friends, and to the poor and needy.

So, I'm taking this opportunity to wish all Muslims out there, Happy Eid Ul-Adha and may we always have the love and peace. By the way, I've created and designed my Eid Ul-Adha e-card just for all of you guys. In addition, it can increase my skills in using Adobe Photoshop. Hehe.. So, till we meet again. Daa~

(Some information taken from Wikipedia)

WEEK 4: It's All About Creativity!

Hey guys! It's time for sharing some good stuffs with all of you! I've been keeping all this pictures for a long time. I received it from e-mail, if I'm not mistaken. It was something different, unique and yet very creative! Hope you'll like it too!

Quit smoking ads at the back of the bus. It can make smokers feel very bad with their habit.

Different way to promote a new SLR camera. Nice!

Been eaten by shark? Haha! It's a National Geographic Channel ads on a bus.

Nice paper bag!

Ouch! Ads about nail biter habit.

Wo! Beware of this man! He's caring a gun! :P

Child care ads. Good one!

Wow! Nice watch huh?

Transparent cups? Haha! Starbuck's creativity.

How is it? It's unique, right? Just want to said it again, I got all this images from e-mail long time ago. So, I really don't know where is the real source of the image. However, credit to the owner or the creator of the image. :-)

WEEK 4: Random Word/Image Association

Holla!

We have reached to the 4th Lesson for the subject, which is Random Word/Image Association. When first heard about the topic, I expected that it was like playing scrabble, jigsaw puzzle or something like that. :P But, actually Random Association is an idea generation method which allows students to systematically generate new ideas through a fixed formula. Fixed formula here means using a specific image or word to generate new ideas.

What I understand about this method is when we are given a problem, we need to randomly choose a word or image to solve the problem. Based on the image/word, list out everything that related to the image/word. Then, create as many solutions as we can from the list, either it is logic or non-logic. Finally, choose the best solution among all of it. Let see some example provided by the lecturer:

Solutions:

1. Color - Face become red when smoking.
2. Expensive - Summons everytime caught smoking.
3. Dirty - Put some bad smelly (really bad) chemical in a cigarette.
4. Color - Paint the cigarette with all colors.
5. Color - Red smoke (to make the smokers feel scared).
6. Color - Paint the cigarette with yellow (yellow means danger).

So, based on the solutions listed above, we can choose the best solution to solve the problem. Interesting is it? From the image of traffic light which is not related with smoking, we can create a solution on how to stop smoking. That's we call creativity! :-) How about another example, but using the other problem and image:

Solutions:

1. Thorny - Create a floor with a thorny surface on it, so that when people want to across the area they feel very scared.
2. Smelly - A device that can produce a really bad smell which make people doesn't want to come nearby.
3. Sharp - Create a trap that have sharp object in it. People will feel scared with it.

There are some of the ideas that can be a solution for the problem. We can think as many as we can and finally choose the best one. So, that's all for the Random Word/Image Association. See you! Bye.

WEEK 4: Class Activity - Creativity Exercise

In today's class, Mr. Radzi was not there. So, it's just Ms. Helena alone and she gave all of us a booklet of creativity exercise to be done in class. There are 3 sections in the booklet and we have given 30 minutes to do all the questions, means 10 minutes for each section. All the questions in the booklet have almost the same instruction which need us to draw an image, object, or anything based on the shapes and lines given.

The challenges are we need to be as creative as we can and at the same time need to finish all the questions in the time provided. It's pretty tough for me, and I fail to complete all the drawings. :-( Maybe I need more time to complete it all. But, nothing to worry, Ms. Helena said that it was not a test. Wheww!

The booklet was submitted and we were given a chance to leave the class early. Yeay!~ Thanks Ms. Helena! :P