First week of school~

(This isn't a CS3216 post but yea...)

The first week back in NUS in a "normal" semester has been a rather crazy week.

With 1 semester away in HKUST and 1 semester at ExxonMobil with just night classes (they don't count as school), studying is just "a little bit" foreign to me now.

The landscape around me is changing so drastically. So far this week, I've gone through CS3216, CN3121 process dynamics, CN4121 design project lectures, and FYP meeting. Module types aren't just MUG and OWN. Must do lots of projects liao.

Also met dear Haoran who's leaving this Sunday for Cornell for PhD. One less close friend around in SG.

Time to start noting down what's happened this past week.
 
FYP
I really think my FYP for now is lagging behind quite a bit. Supposed to be studying COMSOL and analysing all the PDEs, but just cannot understand it. Studying COMSOL boundary conditions now. Let's see:

• Mass continuity
• Momentum conservation
• Species conservation - i.e diffusion
• Charge conservation
• Energy conservation

Looking forward to the time when I can start my Matlab GA optimization :) the PEMFC model will then become a black box :D

CN3121 Process Dynamics and Control
Concept of this module is SO similar to homeostasis. Yet yet yet, it's so mathematical. Open-loop/closed-loop in first lecture is so complicated.

Feedback: Controller reads from controlled variable, calculates error from set-point, uses transfer function to eliminate the disturbance by adjusting manipulated variable.
Feedforward: Controller reads disturbance variable, directly adjusts manipulated variable based on theoretical mathematical model. No visibility on controlled variable.
Cascade: Combination of feedforward and feedback mechanisms.

CN3135 Process Safety
Haven't had class yet! Heard it's not going to be very exciting ><

CN4121 Design Project
Lecture was rather boring. Looking forward to starting Hysis!

And really, after internship, you lose much interest in theory. After all, in industry theory isn't used much. You JUST can't do mass balances or process control by hand anymore. Most decisions are based on heuristics and first-hand experience of the unit or process in question, or huge amounts of software. Theory is just used as a guiding factor, and so hidden from engineers, such that the talk around is "when you graduate, the DCS does everything, you just need to type in the value to the system. you won't need any of these at all. Just press buttons!"

Hmm that is rather shortsighted. I still want to go Aspen or Honeywell if EM doesn't want me back...