All righty, my new amp is up and running. Whats left is just some fine tunning. So here are some pictures for you:
Pretty Blue Light
Cause im on a budget, i had to recycle parts from my old amp
Last shot of it before it is disected :(
So this is what i took out to recycle. Reconditioned it and its ready to be used again.
Getting everything ready to do a mock up with everything inside.
Got those ellen key screws to hold everything in place.
Bare back.
Started soldering all the wires together. Its hell of a mess...Like my hair!
Messy right?!
The largest and smallest heatsink i used in this amp.
Then came the time to spray my casing. I had to sand everything before i could spray. Luckily, i had this adapter thing to sand for the drill and it really helped alot!
Managed to sand it till it reflected evenly but its not very shiny.
The power of aluminium dust...!
Then the spraying started off. I had to do it at the condo's staircase shaft so that no one could smell the smell of spray paint.
Sprayed a total of 3 coats of paint and i think it looks quite nice (:
Final product without the top cover.
And my workspace (Bedroom)
Really learned alot this time round from my father and the people online. Want to really thank my father for being so surpportive this time round. I was seriously shocked when he was so supportive of it but really, he teached me alot of things that i don't think normal schools would teach. So thanks to all those who helped and suggested idea for my project!
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
My New Amp!
Monday, July 30, 2007
away?
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
random
I am pretty sure that many of us have heard before of the story about a 1/4 filled water bottle and the many different ways in which a person can look at it. One such way is that you can think of the bottle as " Hey there is 1/4 of water in the bootle! Thats great!" and alternatively you can think of it as "Oh dear, something is not right cause 3/4 of the bottle is not filled!". It really depends on how you want to think of it and how you want to accept it.
Well, many a times this story is used to encourage people to look on the bright side of things and its not really the end but ever thought of "you" being the one trying to tell the story, know of this story and truly follow it yourself? We keep telling such stories to friends and such, but when it comes down to performance indicators, do we ever see that the 1/4 of the bottle is filled? I am rather sure that most of the time, most, but not all, of us only can see that the 3/4 of the bottle is empty , little will we realise that there is actually this 1/4 of the bottle being filled. In fact, I feel that demands and expectation actually minimises the 1/4 such that it almost appear negligible to oneself. Isn't it such an irony for such a story which is suppose to be encouraging to not be accpeted in the eye of the performance analyser?
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Amp Update

My present, wraped in newspaper.



Then we began drilling 15mm deep holes using the bench press.Look at that! So long!
For the tapping part, we used a portable drill, set it to low speed and tap.
Thats about all for today. Only managed to do the tapping for the top and bottom of the heatsinks, the front and back have to wait till later. It sure is hell lot of work!
Friday, July 20, 2007
MRC handover day
President: Kang De
Vice President: Zhen Ning (yar thats me)
Secretary: Zhong Xian
Treasurer: Shermaine
Quarter Comittee: Colin, Xiang Jun, Joe, Kee Ann
So there it is. I felt rather sad that the seniors are leaving us. All seems just so fast. Well, have to accept it ba.
Together, this new comm shall lead MRC to great success!
Monday, July 16, 2007
Council Investiture 2007
I was rather touched by maggie's speach. Not just because of she thanking us MRC but it was an overall thing. The way she phrased everything and stuff, was just meant to touch peeple. The first CCA she thanked was MRC, and indeed it touched me to know that someone out there actually still knows that we are always around, suporting various events "secretly".
Through this investiture, i learned that council is quite a fun thing. I stayed on for their recession and really saw the other side of council. They were actually giving out presents to teachers and councils. The councils first gave the 5 teacher in charge presents and they were very very creative presents in my opinion. There was one for this teacher called: eeker tanial?! Don't really know how to spell it but its pronounced it this way. So the first present was this card showing a new kind of evolution from ET to 一个大牛 to Tuna. I couldn't really get the tuna part but it was just funny la. So after that card, the council people gave him a back massager with a cow head soft toy on its tip. Then came the fun part. He was given 2 custom shirt. The first one was a white shirt with the words, 一个大(a cow head). The next T-shirt was one with the words tuna. But it was designed to look like the Puma style. So instead of the words Puma, it was replaced with the words TUNA and instead of a leopard, it was replaced with a flying tuna -_-. Quite lame but it was hilarious!
Ahh its just so sad that half a year has gone and various CCA leaders are stepping down already. What have i done this half year? I don't really know. Its like i just closed my eyes and half a year is gone.
Oh ya. From council investiture, i learned one thing too! Old teacher does not necessarily mean naggy. Trust me on that. I learned that FIRST HAND. Haha!
Friday, July 13, 2007
Amp Update

Instead of 2 resistors, now there is only one. so its 1.2ohms
Each channel has its own heatsink.
Everything needed to run the whole thing.
Now some maths. With voltage of 0.739V and a resistor of 1.2Ohm, we have:
0.739=(I)(1.2)
I=0.616A
Power that is continuously dissipated.
P=VI
P=(32)(0.616)
P=~20watts
Thats alot of heat considering im not using it to cook anything. It works already and there is sound. I would really wish to borrow my father's office oscilloscope and check for oscillations here and there. But anw, theres sound already. I have yet to do a proper listening test so cant really comment on the sound. Must wait till it gets fitted into a box, which will be my aluminium casing (:
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Jia Qian's Mum
The newspapers reported on this and its a very hot news now. Sadly and annoyingly, the hospital is actually claiming that they were willing to provide as much blood as they could to her mother. It is just super annoying. Shying away from responsibility? It has not been the first time i seen such cases already. Last year, my grandma passed away also under the surgeons knife. She was admitted to the hospital just to undergo a simple surgery to change her broken bone to an artificial one. The chance of survival as claimed by the doctor was 90%. 90% mind you. My cousin, who was a doctor too, encouraged my grandma to undergo this operation. Who knew what happened? The incision was made, and immediately, my grandma went into cardiac arrest. She had a heart attack in the middle of the operation? I don't know. But what i knew was that when my uncles and parents probed the hospital for the reason behind my grandma's death, they were wishy washy and very very inefficient. Excuses were that the doctors was on leave. Very "efficient" i must say.
I feel very sorry for Jia Qian and her family. Just hope that her father will stay strong. Not easy to bring up 4 children now. Pray that they would not meet with any big problems. To end it off, i will quote what her father said
"Does Saving A Life Require Approval?"
Monday, July 9, 2007
Chinese Orals
Sunday, July 8, 2007
0_0?!
This time the blowing up was even more POWERFUL! I was wiring everything up on my second channel and decided to turn it up after checking the wiring. So i turned the power on and POP! Saw a damn big spark and then saw the cap actually shoot out of the circuit board?! So scary la! Very lucky again cause i wasn't sitting in the "firing range". I think im going to change all the tantalum caps on my circuit to either ceramic caps or just use the electrolytic cap la.
A trip to my father's office
I was super excited cause i got to use this machine:

Its a heck of a drilling machine and the good thing is, its precise. I was rather surprised when i got to know of the price tag of this machine, around 100+. Wah such a precise machine and it costs less than a Black and Decker hand drill?! WOOTS!
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Pop goes the capacitor!
But anyway, the scary thing was this. I happily resoldered back the +ve supply to the opamp's +ve input and turned that thing on again. "PIACK" and black smoke arose. WTF HAPPENED?!?!?!
I was stunned to see that but quickly switched off the whole thing and waited for the large caps to discharge. Honestly speaking, i was pretty lucky cause i took safety precaution before turning it on if not that cap would have exploded in front of me! I went to the look at the circuit board and guess what i saw? This ---->

Looks allright right?
Hmm whats that line along the side of this cap?
WTF!
The black marks are the results of the cap blowing with great velocity.
Im seriously not sure what happened. Its a tantalum cap and it is a polar cap. Im pretty sure that i did not connect it wrongly. So what happened?
Its Alive!

Power supply in the making. Cap bank of 30000uF per rail. +/-16V, full wave DC rectification.
Mounted the amp onto the heatsink
Connected everything up togetherTurned it on and it works after repairing one fault.
Now time for some maths. As you can see, the multimeter is reading 734mV. So in other words its 0.734V. The yellow and green crocodile clips are measuring the potential difference between this 0.6Ohm resistor.
V=IR
0.734V = (I)(0.6Ohm)
I = 1.22A
Thats a reasonable quiescent current. But after letting it idle for awhile, its current quiescent current is around 1.21A which is still a reasonable value. Most probably i would bias it even higher to around 1.5A cause my heatsink is like damn big and now the heat emiting from it is quite low.
Now gonna hook a speaker to it and have a listen. See ya!
Friday, July 6, 2007
messed up
I miss talking to you. We used to chatter alot and it really was on any random subject, but now? We don't even say hi to each other anymore. What happened? How in the world could such a friendship just die in such a short time and just like that? We worked so hard together to try to achieve what i thought was our common target. I thought we had that common target, that same mentality, the same thoughts but maybe i was wrong. I don't know.
Just like that and it all ends? Was our friendship really worth nothing to start with that it can be ended just so easily? I don't think so but do you?
Thursday, July 5, 2007
chinese
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Mum's Sick
She cooks for our whole family almost everyday. Relentlessly doing the housework with no strings attached. Unconditional love. She came home today with a very pale face and dashed straight to the toilet once she reached home. She was feeling very uncomfortable.
I can only hope that she would get well soon.
Amp Update
Went down to Sim Lim Tower(SLT) today after Physics SPA which i screwed it quite a bit because i forgot to change the units. Got some new components and went home to start soldering. Jin Zhe tagged along too. During the buying process, i was trying to find this opamp, OPA2134. Because it was not a general purpose opamp, it would be very difficult to be found in SLT. So i gave up on it and thought that i should just order it online through RS Comp or Farnell. But then, before i made my way home, i decided to go get some blackgates from Well Audio Labs at Burlington Square. Over there, Frankie, the owner of the shop if im not wrong, was very very friendly. Bought the blackgates from him and then i asked if did he sell opamps. He kindly replied no but then referred me to farnell and rscomp. Then i told him that i could not buy cause i did not have credit card but then he said is can one. Then he referred me to a company called Federal in SLT and said that they could bring them in for you. I was super happy and glad that i actually made my way down to Well Audio Lab to buy blackgates cause i not just got my blackgates but also got valueable information. Thanks Frankie! Went back all the way to SLT and went to federal. The people there were generall friendly but then i had not a very good experience cause this guy cut the queue and went first before me. Can't really blame him too cause i was like flipping through Farnell's and RS Comps catalogs so most likely the sales person was like "are u going to order something?" But anw, ordered the OPS2134 and it will take one day for it to arrive but i can only collect it on thursday. So here's some pictures!







Now is to wait to get my hands on a drill and then drill my aluminium bracket so that i can mount the power devices and test it.
Oh! I got my aluminium plates cut to size already. Total there are 4 pieces, 2 big 2 small, with one of the 2 smaller pieces having a rectangle and 6 holes being cut. I think the rectangular hole was cut using a plasma cutter. Thats according to the lady i spoke to who helped me out.
Cant wait for it to be fully assembled!
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Flight Of The Bumble Bee
Friday, June 29, 2007
A Touching Story
At the meeting, he announced to everyone: 'As long as you tell me what you will do in your next life to repay me, all of you need not return me a single cent in your current life.'
A lot of people were delighted. All of them stepped up to him and said that they will be his maids, his cows, his horse, his slave and so on and so for except for this person. He went up to him and said: 'I would want to be your parents in our next life.'
The wealthy man was furious to hear that and burst into anger complaining about this person’s audacity to actually even think of being his parents. Then the person replied: 'Every one wants to be your slaves but can being a slave really repay your kindness that you have given me? Only through being your parents then I can repay your kindness because the love and contributions that parents give to their children is unconditional.'
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Aftermath
Today had chinese. It was like some concentration camp to me. Sit in the badminton hall with a very cold climate for slightly more than 3 hours. Intrestingly, i enjoyed writing the compo while i was at it. It just flowed out naturally without any hesitation. By the time 1 and a half hours is over, i was already so eager to go visit the toilet. The second question paper was given out and i was contemplating on whether to go toilet or just continue and wait. Then one by one, they left for toilet. I was like "hmm i should go too, but i got chinese. ARGH!" So in the end i resisted. It was getting more and more urgent towards the end of the exam that i was already on the verge of asking for permission to go to the toilet but suddenly i heard "All student there is 15 mins left for you and from now on, you are not allowed to leave the badminton hall." AHHHHH!!!!!!!!! 15mins passed like nuts slow and i could feel each second slowly making matter worst. Checked and checked the paper again and FINALLY we are let off to go to the toilet. I was so relieved after that.
Went to clementi with Mamudigeda, Wei Jie and Ronnie. Ate at this japanese restaurant and started crapping of all sorts of random stuff. It really comforts me when i talk to all the ex 4/2 people. It feels as if i belong to somewhere when im around with them.
On the pass, i started thinking of stuff that are happening around me. Then this question came to my mind, how do you describe a feeling where u hate someone u actually love?
Monday, June 25, 2007
The Battle Begins
This morning, hundreds of ACJC students braced themselves as they, for the first time, step into the battle field of ACJC. Different sections of us were distrubuted over various battle grounds in hope that the environment would more conducive for us to battle in.
So the first paper. GP. GG is the only 2 word. Open the qns booklet and smack in front of you the first question is some chimish chim chim word question. They asked something like what is "masquerade (something) cinema". Can't really remember that something but yea. Its like WOAH! MASQUERADE AND CINEMA?!?! EHHHH?????? The first question was really a major setback but luckily, the battle went on "smoother". Passage B was not so difficult perhaps its because i could really picture it and feel what it meant. It was more applicable to Singapore so maybe thats why easier to understand. The Vocab part had this weird question. It asked for the defination of "pungent". Smelly would be "dictionarily correct" but if smelly was used to replace pungent in the passage, the passage sounds funny.
The battle with GP was an incredibly tough one especially with the cold weather conditions. Most of us who were first timers came unprepared to cope with the tormenting climate ending up shivering. When the battle with GP was announced over, all combat units returned to base and awaited for the next battle.
For me, there was chem. But according to me, No food no brain. So yea FOOD! Went to canteen to stock up food and then went to find an empty classroom to gear ourselves up for the next battle. Supposed to mug but end up talking random stuff-_-"'
The time came, so back we went to that place with the terrible climate. The battle started and the first question gave a good impression. Then second question came and it was hard. Ended up guessing but then got correct after i retried doing it. The whole of the paper is really tough. Got all the weird weird question that never really did before.
Came out almost dead. Felt so upset about it that i decided to indulge myself in food.
So tomorrow is Econs and Maths. Maths is like fighting a losing battle and econs is like maybe still got hope.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Chinese homework
Did my chinese homework today, boy oh boy its like im only doing chinese homework la, so weird. Had to do this holiday assignment and i choosed to do a recording of a story, alone. Recording chinese is not as easy as i thought. Took like 3 hours to get it done and its all because of the recording! The addition of effects took like just 30mins. Have a listen :http://www.geocities.com/zning4/story.mp3
Sunday, June 10, 2007
4o2 Outing!
We made our way to Sentosa on the new monorail and when we reached Imbiah Station, this kid in the monorail said "Mummy this is imbah station ahh?" Immediately, all of us went "IMBAH STATION!?" Okay we were very mean. We went to Palawan beach but we had a hard time finding a spot to settle down. It was so crowded over there but we eventually found a spot under the coconut tree. The first few hours were non stop of continuous stoning. The soccer guys went to watch this beach soccer match nearby and the rest of us just stonned under the cocunut tree. Zheng Han was interacting with his volleyball which was kind of weird. He went into the sea to swim with the ball. In the end, me and Clement went to join him. We lazed around in the sea and we were sort of drifting out into the sea. The life guards kept screaming at us to get back near the shore. Okay its for our own safety, safety is always the most important.
We grew so bored that we went to rent bikes. Clement, Zhe Kai and I rented our own bikes. Clement cycled half naked but me and Zhe Kai were not. We cycled to Siloso Beach and went to the 7-Eleven over there. Bought some drinks and headed back. I was holding onto this drink and cycling with one hand. There was this beach tram on the left and behind it was some ang moh skating. I was on the right cycling quite fast. THEN SUDDENLY, THE ANG MOH JUST SWERVE INTO MY LANE! WTH! I braked so hard that my bike jerked and it hit me so hard and it hit for like so many times. Luckily i did not fall off the bike and the drink was not spilled. Wah the ang moh just kept going on la.
Reached our original spot and by then the girls have arrived. There was Sophiana, Su Jun, Yanru and Eewen. I think they paid $3 to come to Sentosa just to play cards. The 3 of us continued cycling. The time came to return the bike and we were officially bored again. Some of us, okay me, got hungry and we went to 7-Eleven to get some cup noodles. Sophiana, Eewen, Clement and me walked there. Shei Pin and Wei Jie also walked with us but they were already leaving Sentosa. They left us when we were at the train station. There was a 7-eleven over at the train station but it was super crowded and there was no seat for us. So the 4 of us walked to Siloso beach and ate at the 7-Eleven over there. Eewen was pretty funny cause she spotted her interact club people over at the 7-Eleven and she was trying to hide from them. She kept staying outside the 7-Eleven while we got our cup noodles. All of us got this "Xin" spicy mushroom noodle. Then came Clement and his mathematical, calculative blah blah blah mind. He was comparing the price to weight ratio of the big bowl and the small bowl noodle to decide which is more worthwhile. So he finally came to a conclusion that the big bowl is more worthwhile. We paid and then cooked the noodles. Sat down at a corner of 7-Eleven and started eating. Eewen joined us because her interact club seniors left 7-Eleven. She said she was not hungry but then don't know why she still got a big bowl of noodles. I finished eating the noodles but i was still very hungry. Sophia was also still hungry after her cup noodles so we went around 7-eleven again to grab some snacks. In the end we got ourselves candy. It cost $2.60 and clement went RAH RAH RAH SO EX and started calculating its price to weight ratio again but he was convinced that it was more worthwhile because the candy was significantly heavier. Walked back to Palawan beach after that.
On the way we talked about random stuff and then Eewen said something about her name saying that if her parents were to name her english name using hokkien translation, it would have sounded like Ee****. All of us kept laughing at it but we made a promise not to leak this small little secret of ours out.
Made our way back to Palawan beach and on our way, we saw this beautiful sun set. We grew bored again at the beach. I started building sand castles. Sophia, Eewen and Clement joined in and there was this competition between the guys and the girls to see who could build the better sandcastles using the super big gulp cup. It was so funny and fun.
Then i got thrown into the sea-_-. Darren said he wanted to get revenge because i kneed his ass. All of them were like chasing me around the beach but i was not fast enough and eventually Hosen got me. I was dragged down the beach and eventually thrown into the sea. Wah of all places somewhere so shallow that it hit so hard on my back. Haha. I got back up and started chasing Darren. Could have almost got him if not for my poor stamina. I think Dylan helped me to stop him but im not sure because i was not wearing my specs. Wanted to drag him down into the sea but i was just so exhausted from all the running around.
So the sun set into the sea and all of us prepared ourselves to go home. Took a quick shower and went to vivo city to eat our dinner. Ate at the Kopitiam. After eating, we discussed on what to send to Sook Xian because the next day, which is today, is her birthday. In the end, we came up with this. " HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO SOOKIMA, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! HAVE FUN AND A NICE DAY AHEAD. 4o2 ROCKS =)" This is what the 5 of us decide to send to her at 12 midnight.
Eventually got home and waited till 12 midnight to send her the SMS. Watched "I Not Stupid" on TV while waiting. Felt pretty sad while watching the movie.
Well Happy Birthday Sook Xian!
Thursday, June 7, 2007
eye popping experience
Yesterday, i woke up earlier than usual to go to my father's office to work. They had to produce this programming cable in the shortest time possible for their customer, thats why i was brought in to help them. I was there to solder the cables. The office only had enough material to build 4 of that cable so the max was 4.
When i first saw the cable that i had to make, i just went "OH MY!" There was this 20 something over pin D-Sub connector and 2 9Pin D-Sub connector to solder. But the worst thing of all was to solder this 24 pin IC to the connectors and soldering 5 Surface Mount Deviced( SMD) capacitors to the IC. Then also had to use wire wrapping kind of wires to lay the circuitary. Its just too bad that i did not bring a camera along to take photo of that cable, but to me it really is like a piece of art work (:
The first cable came out within an hour or so but the bad thing is there was some circuitary problem with that cable itself. Yu Kuet, an engineer in the office, took out the schematic and traced the paths of the circuit. He realised that he drew the circuit wrongly and had the input to the output and the output to the input. So i took back the cable and the sample and changed 2 pieces of wire and YAY it works.
The second cable came out after another hour and it worked too! Then lunch came. Ate in the office because some of the workers brought food for everyone! Its so nice of them to bring food to share. There was spaghetti, "wu xiang", nuggets, curry and apple. Ate till i was quite full and help pack up a little. Went back to my soldering station and began soldering again.
By now, my eyes were already getting tired and my brain is starting to not think properly. I did not design the circuit so i had to follow the schematics but i'm seriously bad at following stuff if i do not really understand the circuit and how its connected. So i was kind of zombified and robotic when i was soldering the 3rd and 4th cable. Kind of crazy too i must say. Fortunately, the third cable came out perfectly fine.
When i was starting work on the 4th cable, Yu Kuet and Xu Jun had a conference call to someguy overseas through skype. They were discussing some stuff about their ongoing projects. That kept me quite awake while i was soldering the 4th cable. I think if not for that conference call, i would be soldering the wrong stuff already. So out came the 4th cable but sadly, it was not working. So i began tracing and tracing but hmm, all of the connections are right. Then i began searching for shorts. Good thing there is this wonderful invention called a multi meter. I found the short at pin 6 and 7 of the 20 something over pin D-Sub connector. It was due to some leftover solder that shorted them together. Took the soldering iron and desoldered it. Tested it again and yes! it works.
Managed to complete 4 of the cable and seriously im quite proud of myself cause i never imgained that i would be able to solder such small components and wires. But well i did it (: AND OH! I SO LOVE THE SOLDERING IRON AT THE OFFICE! IT HAS TEMPERATURE CONTROL!!!! WOOTS!
Friday, June 1, 2007
Amp in Progress
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
MRC Camp
My next period was a test in hall. It was chapel setup test. Managed to set everything up but i took quite some time. Then went up to the cage and i was timed to fix back the video section of the cage. That took me like 15-20 mins i guess and all the stupid freaking BNC to RCA changers are all spoilt. Then was the light mixer. Set it up in like less than a minute. They remved the DMX512 head from the wall point, unscrew the monitor, remove the power plug and plug in the other end of the DMX512 to another port on the video mixer. Programmed it and voila done. Then long long break again-_-
After that was dinner dinner we had err can remember food too but anyway after dinner was my LT test. Hao Ting was testing me and there were 2 other people following me, Ivan and Brandon. First up was Ivan. HT's first question was whether he knew how to turn on the lights in LT4. It was really very funny when he wanted to setup the LT system in the dark. He had some difficulty setting up everything so HT asked Brandon to go help him. After Ivan finished, it was Brandon's turn. He was good and managed to set everything up. Then i thought it was my turn but NO~~~ , It was Ivan's turn again. Made me so gan jiong. This time round, HT challenged him to a time limit and he made it within 5 mins. Then after Ivan's turn, HT asked Brandon to help Ivan dismantle and screw up the LT system. Then HT asked me "Zhen Ning, how long do you think you need to set up the LT system?" Obviously i could not say like i need longer so i also said 5 mins. BUT THE SYSTEM WAS SCREWED MORE THAN ALL OF THEIR SYSTEMS LA. Then i had to work in the dark. Only light source was HT's handphone with this camera light. It was really looking with my hands in the end. Good thing is i still managed to finish everything in 5 mins.
After LT, i went to the outdoor system room to take a look at Shermaine's progress with the outdoor system. I would say that although she did not really perform well, she is already trying her best. I was locked out of that room after awhile because Wei Liang was uncomfortable with me around cause maybe i would leak info to her.
So after that it was shoer time. Went to the sports complex to bathe and then went back and sleep. Gave Babi chong my sleeping bag to sleep on and i slept on someone else opened up sleeping bag. My tail bone hurt like nonsense while i was sleeping and i was experiencing cramps and such while sleeping. Did not really slept well. And the air con was like so cold that i had to go and turn it off halfway through the night. Sometime around midnight, this group of people took torch light and shine aroudn the room and they were like whispering "XLR cable la" then i was like "wah lao ehh"
At 5am, TADA, the lights were turned on and WL made all of us wake up and assemble outside MR room. We were going to play treasure hunt? Not sure what game but it was this game where u must find clues which will lead u on to the next clue. My group started off with this clue, "where little mermaid lives". At once we went over to the sunken gallery. walked around that area but found no clue. Then went up to the pool deck and found one clue but it was not the right clue that we were suppose to find. But anw we just took it. Then we were like stuck. I walked around the sunken gallery scrutinising every speck of dust and FINALLY, found this stack of paper pasted onto the wall. Grabbed it and went on to the next clue. We got stuck at the 3rd clue. It said "BACKside attack". We went to the hall, to the back gate to everywhere we can think of but found nothing. So in the end we decided to skip it since we found other clues without even finding their previous clues. Half way through, all of the teams got real frustrated and started to share info and clues. We wandered around to the various venues we exchanged with the other groups and finally, we managed to find all the clues except for the back side attack one.
The game was stopped halfway cause it was getting late and we were suppose to eat breakfast already. For breakfast, we got Nasi Lemak. It tasted like heavenly stuff. Wait everything tastes heavenly when you are hungry. So after this was my theory test. we had to sit in that room for 3 hours. I was Piaing through everything at full speed but in the end still cannot finish. Towards the end, the remaining people in the room started to talk and just don't care about the papers at all. It was quite funny.
Lunch was fried noodles. The serving was seriously so little and i was not full. But no choice. Then came the video lesson. We had to come up with a 1 min short clip of Rock AC withint 4 hours. At first i thought, hmm should be quite easy. But then once i started to do, its like ehhh WAH SO HARD AHH! The funny thing was Jeffrey. He was sitting beside me at the G5 when Poof went the screen. WTH! JEFFREY!!!! WHY U MAKE THE G5 TURN OFF!!! The best part was we didn't save it-_- But nevermind, HaoTing came back to turn it on and in no time, Jeffrey made it turn off again. % !@! !$ But anw, we got it done just in time. Quite satisfied with it but zzz, videoing really SUCKS big time.
Then had a short short break then dinner. We got hor fun for dinner which was quite bad because it has all dried up. Almost wanted to add hot water to it but decided that im too lazy.
After dinner, we had games in the hall. We were splitted into 2 teams. The game was such that one of us was blind folded and the person up there has to guide them through a maze. Was quite difficult for me especially when it came to my turn to be blindfolded. I actaully lost balance and fell-_-. So sorry guys. Had a debrief after the game then we got back our test papers. I was the top scorer with a score of 87%. Or was it 82%. hmm cant remember. But anw, quite happy with my marks (:
We shifted the base venue to 2.13 to sleep. I was just really tired that i slept within like 30mins after we reached the room. Everyone was still so high and stuff and they were playing card games and using their laptops. At around 4am, BOOM THE LIGHTS WENT ON AGAIN. Reuben and Hao Ting came in and made us all go to the hall. We were given this team challenge to setup chapel within 3mins. The first time we did it, we took 30 mins because of all the screw ups of the mic. Packed the thing in like 10 mins. Wah all of us were like zombies in action. So zombified. Had to keep redoing and redoing and redoing but this time we planned everything. Cause we got 17 people, all of us grabbed one mic and did it. Along the way, we changed tactics from time to time and soon our timing got better and better. We had once where we actually did it in 2 mins and 53 seconds. Quite fast i must say. The hall was very hot while we were doing it and i think i developed slight rashes. Quite itchy and pain.
Lunch came and we were treated to good food this time. Nasi Brani and ice mocha. Enjoyed it real much. But after lunch we continued doing the chappel setup. All in all, we did chappel for like 22 times. Enough to last for the next term.
After that, we were asked to pack up the cabinet and after that we had to do fun-o-rama setup. The fun-o-rama setup was kind of large scaled cause it spreaded throughout the school. Once we got everything setted up, we tested it. At first there was no sound on one of the horns so i had to like run around the whole school to hear every horn. Trust me its tougher than runing 2.4km. Strange. everything was connected properly but why was there no sound? I ran back to room 3.6 which was where our amps were. Tried and tried but no sound. Then i flicked a switch and WOW! GOT SOUND AND SO LOUD! haha! We did not turn on the amp thats why. Ran down to ask Reuben to check. As Reuben went around the school to check, Zhong Xian was like talking crap into the horn. Like conversation with someone then somemore so loud. Quite funny. After the checks, we packed up and ZZZZZZ coil the super duper long cables that are flying around the school.
MRC camp was declared over after the Fun-o-rama thingy and some briefing. Stayed back to eat dinner with them and 2 seniors came back to visit us. stayed on till like 10pm then left school. Took bus home with Shu Ting and when i got home i was so freaking tired that i felt like just going to sleep directly. Its really that tiring.
Friday, May 25, 2007
I went into the station for donating of blood. The nurse sat me beside this very friendly J2 girl who was also donating blood. It was her second time already and she was very friendly and kept comforting me. Obviously i was SUPER NERVOUS! The nurse came and started doing the necessary stuff. she took like dunno how many tubes and then this bag for the blood and gave me iron tablets. Itstarted off with her labelling the tubes, which she was very quick at, then she injected me with this anesthetic which really hurt alot. Then she took out this BIG needle which was connected to tubes which led to the bag. I was like WOAH! SO BIG?!?! She pushed the needle slowly into my body. It felt really weird. The early entry part is just like feeling nothing. Then as the needle makes its way in, it starts to feel as if some weird thing is crawling around inside you. But thanks to the anesthetic, it did not felt very bad.
I started to exercise my hand and very soon the whole bag was filled. Another nurse came to end the process which included the withdrawal of the needle. Amazingly, i felt nothing at all during the withdrawal. I was even wondering if has the needle been taken out of my body. Sat there for around 5 mins while applying pressure to this cloth which was above my insertion area. Then this man came to bandage my wound and i was ready to go. Felt a little giddy at first but after awhile, i was feeling fine already. Hope that this pack of blood would save someone's life.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Schematic:

Then i began planning how am i going to put the components [sorry for the bad picture, my phone's camera really suck ): ]
And started soldering according to my plan
See all the black holes, they are markings i made to tell me what goes where.
Lets play spot the difference, see if can u spot the difference
In case you are wondering why are there only like resistors and a 8pin socket for the opamp, its because the circuit has no caps and the mosfet and transistors are yet to be installed cause i need them to be on a heatsink which needs to be drilled. Unfortunately, i have no drill-_- Anyone willing to lend me a drill? A benchpress would be better (:
Yesterday, there was Passion AC. Setup was almost the same as Rock AC just that the on stage work isn't as bad as Rock AC. Okay actually the on stage work is almost non-existent. We just need to help CF set up their things right and then its ready! The stage monitors were run through the mixer before going to the stage so that the monitors were controlled by us.
I did videoing and the camera stand i got was some crappy crap crap one. The pan mechanism was "okay" but the tilting part of the mechanism is like very "SMOOTH". It jerks alot whenever i want to shift it and its just super hard to get that nice angle i want to take cause i can barely control it. But anyway just did it lor. Took videos of the singers facial expressions, the drummer's expression, pianist expression, guitarist expression, computer girl's expression and the audience expression. For the starting part of Passion AC, there was no lights shining at the audience so i could not take the audience's expression. Tried turning this night shot plus function but still too dark. In the end, it was like 1 and a half tape full of the performers and pastors expression. Only until halfway through then the lights came on. Then YAY! Can take the people's facial expression.
Towards the end of the whole Passion AC, the performers started performing again then i saw the back lights go on and off and on and off in some rhythm. I was wondering if it was pre programmed or not so i pass the camera to Colin and ran to the cage, okay im very mean. Then i realised that it was just Shermaine pressing it but not bad leh at least can catch the tempo. HAHA I TOOK OVER THE LIGHTING MIXER!!!! WOOTS! It was seriously like playing O2JAM but its LIVE!!!! Had so much fun with it and trying to do some impromptu stuff like changing the lighting tempo and the pattern of the way the lights light up. This song, Take It All, CAME!!!! YAY!!!! Its Sam's favourite song and i knew the song well, cause when she was around she would play it like again and again AND AGAIN for the whole of morning pre assembly-_- BUT, cause i knew this song, I could like make the lighting effects so much better la! I loved this song especially the part that went "take take take it all, take take take it all" I made the lights like blink at some tempo with the song. Wah i seriously love doing the colour lights, its really so much fun especially when the audience is so high. Good thing is i did not get scolded for operating the lights like that for me myself was worried that i would spoil it. I was pressing so fast that i think sometimes i made the light turn on and off at a frequency of 2-3Hz or so? But well im very honoured to be able to do the lights at the last part.
Monday, May 14, 2007
So how was my birthday? Quite touching i must say. Early in the morning, there was Samantha and Ryan's SMS in my phone wishing me a happy birthday. Aww, don't they seem like a couple? Haha. After that, when i reached school, nothing was much different from usual until halfway through chapel, oh and anyway, i miss the drums :(, Clement SMSed me wishing me happy birthday. Then i started thinking, hmm maybe not so little people dun know and remember my birthday afterall. Later on, i went to back stage and started talking with Nyssa (I didn't spell it wrong this time round (: ), Christiana and PK. They robbed me of my wallet and ransacked it! The first thing they took out was the EZ-Link card. Then wow! They wished me happy birthday. So nice of them! Then after that i got SMS from Sophiana, Jasmine and Jade. Thanks alot everyone (:
Oh then it was NAFA... The test that i predict i would fail for i think 2 more years. I jumped 245 for SBJ which is a freking 1 cm from an A, got 10.2 which is like 0.1 second from an A then got 40cm for sit and reach which is a C, then got 44 for sit up which is an A and got a U for my pull up-_-. FAIL. Finito.
Met up with the firedrakers. COOL STUFF! They bought me a cake!!!!! SO nice la! Aiya i seriously don't what to say and how to thank them. Just so nice of them. Then they were singing the birthday song so loudly, until i super paiseh. But its really nice of them la.
Well a few more hours to go before its gone, so off i go (:
Saturday, May 12, 2007
So RockAC is finnally over with all that hectic stuff to plan and organise and setup and bla bla bla. YAY! Its finally over. I was on backstage duty (AKA "Sai Kang" Warriors) yesterday for rock AC. It was kind of time pressing especially for the very very first contestant. We had to setup everything which included the drum set, bass amps, guitar amps EVERYTHING in under 1 minute. Well we had the help of he councilors to help us shift all the heavy stuff like the HEAVYWEIGHT bass amp. Its like 60kg.! So fortunately our task is to just lay wires and plug everything into the amps and mics. Amazingly, all of us managed to set everything up in like less than half a minute!?!? Wonderful isn't it, but if not for the council people, i doubt we can do it in such a short amount of time. So after this, it was less tough for us already cause the following bands did not have much variations from the initial setup. OH! the first band. They had this crazy drummer. Trance like i would say when he drums. Totally out of the world. I think he whacked one of the mics while he played half way and it shifted it. He was like yelling at us the mic while he was drumming and all of us were like, err what should we do? But in the end Wei Liang went up on stage to adjust it. Then came the Maksim wannabe. He is real good in my honest opinion. He played Nostradamus and Kolibre. AND DANG, Stage monitors had no sound for the 1st and 2nd half of the song. HAHA all of us at the back stage was like yelling into the walkie talkie, "TURN ON THE STAGE MONITOR!!!!!" Only until like halfway through Kolibre then TA DANG! got sound. I felt really sad for the pianist cause he was slightly off tempo for Kolibre cause he could not listen to the backing track, but well he got LOADS of praises from the judges. Good for him (:
Okay i got to go for now shall write more on RockAC a little later.
RockAC
It's your stage.
Friday, May 4, 2007
Im so looking forward to Rock AC and Passion AC. They are events that i crave to do because of all the technical stuff that MRC has to settle. Okay fine i don't sound right, but anw, there is a rehersal tomorrow and lets see what happens. The plan that we got is quite "big" in a sense that there are 3 projector screens that will be used during he event. Its like the the hall is not so big? To me the main item i would be looking out for would be the drum duet.
Had a good encounter with KSL today. Actually he is quite a nice person, quite funny too! I helped him tape people talking, okay more like i helped him interview people using the camera. The interview was on what we thought would be a ideal college and classroom. Some of the comments i heard are simply wonderful and i really hope that the teachers would at least consider them?
I stayed back late today till like 8 then i left the MR room. I was watching this super vulgur video in the room when suddenly the VP just popped out form no where. IT WAS SO SCARY! He was like, "playing games again ahh". Lucky he did not hear any vulgurities when he came in. So he talked a little then left the room. Really lucky that he did not hear anything that he should not hear.