Js:Letter of Transmittal

Letter of Transmittal
25 October 2015

Madame Alice Goh
Senior Manager on Research Group
Building and Construction Authority
200 Braddell Road ZEB Level 3
Singapore 579700

Dear Madam Alice Goh,
RE: Reducing heat gain on east and west facade walls of HDB flats
We are pleased to present our proposal on reducing heat gain on the east and west facade walls in HDB flats which will ultimately reduce indoor temperature for greater energy efficiency and sustainability.

The content of this proposal consists of the current solutions, the advantages and disadvantages of the current solutions, the group's proposed solution and benefits.
Current solutions such as reflective paint, windows and green wall are able to reduce the indoor temperature and the amount of sunlight penetrating to a small extent in a HDB household unit in compromising the high initial cost, subsequent maintenance and lack of ventilation.

The group’s proposed solution is to implement water-cooled facade wall. It uses harvested rainwater to reduce indoor temperature of a HDB household unit. The advantages are it reduces the amount heat trapped indoors, decreases the amount energy consumption and minimises the damage to the ozone layer by reducing the emission of harmful greenhouse gases.

Your time spent on our proposal is greatly appreciated. We hope you will consider our proposed solutions to allow us to take a step closer towards responding to the HDB dweller needs, by providing them a conducive environment of living in Singapore.

Yours Sincerely,
Joey Neo
on behalf on ‘Js

Js: Executive Summary

Executive Summary

Singapore is located at the north of the equator and with high precipitation rate throughout the year makes Singapore a hot and humid country. Singapore could experience higher temperature in the future.

Many Singaporeans who are living in HDB flat now are feeling uncomfortably hot as the indoor temperature increases due to the heat being trapped particularly on the east and west façade walls. As a result, HDB dwellers tends to switch on the air conditioner and fan causing an increase of energy consumption.

Water-Cooled façade wall is a method that utilizes harvested rainwater to run through PVC pipes which are embedded inside the walls using gravity feeds. Water-Cooled façade wall is able to reduce heat gain on the east and west façade walls which will ultimately reduce indoor temperature for greater energy efficiency and sustainability.

Water-Cooled façade wall is a solution that can reduces the amount of thermal heat trapped indoors, decreases the amount of energy consumption and minimizes the damage to the ozone layer by reducing the emission of harmful greenhouse gases.

The benefits of Water-Cooled façade wall are reduction in thermal heat trapped indoors, reduction in the amount of energy consumption, and reduction in the damage to the ozone layer.

Water-Cooled façade wall is a beneficial, simple and innovative method that reduces heat gain on east and west façade wall. It will contribute towards the conservation and improvement of our environment for a sustainable development.

Js: Personal statement

As an engineering student studying Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering (Land) at Singpore Institute of technology, I always feel that engineers are improving things that others think is perfect. I feel that it is good to do something for the society that we live in. Global warming is a world issue that everyone needs to play a part to combat this problem. With our proposed solution to the problem of heat gain in HDB flat, we can definitely protect the environment with the reduction of the harmful carbon emission from the use of the air conditioners or fans for cooling down the room temperature.

The role of peer and tutor feedback

The purpose of peer feedback is to provide us with more opportunities to learn from the others. After each assignment, two or more students can work together to check each other’s work and give comment on the assignment. It can be in the form of corrections, opinions, suggestions, ideas to each other. This form of learning can provide diversity as students do not just listen to the tutor’s guidance but also work with the peer to do more practices in the assignment.

In SIE 2016 Effective Communication module, the task of giving and receiving feedback is a normal norm for us as we are given opportunities to give feedback to our peers. This allows us to interact and learn from each other. This kind of learning is very new to me as previously I only get feedback from my tutor only. Thus, the interaction between my peers and I are very minimal. Therefore, I personally feel that I learn a lot from this module through the peer and tutor feedback.

I still remember that time when we just start setting up our blog and were given a task to start writing on our first post. We were given a choice between 2 topics to write on which are “The importance of English for me” and “Our English Journey”. I took “Our English Journey” as my topic as I feel that it is more relevant to me. Soon after, I published my first post on my blog. For my second part of my assignment, I have to give feedback to 3 peers in my blogger group. They are Daniel, Joey and Shengda. At the start I thought that giving feedback is simply sharing my thought on their post but after receiving Mr. Blackstone feedback myself, I realize that I should not only share my thoughts but also give constructive feedbacks to our peers and help them to lookout for their careless grammar mistakes. In this process, my peers and I get to learn from our mistake and improve together.

While looking back on my blog posts, I found out that I tend to make a lot of careless mistake in my writing. While receiving the feedbacks from both my peers and tutor, I can filter out all the careless mistakes and make improvement on my writing assignments. For example, the reader response assignment, it took 4 draft before the finalized version can be prefect. Whenever I look at back at the previous drafts, there is a clear improvement for the next draft. We do received feedback on our oral presentation too which help shape us into better presenter as a whole.Therefore, I think that feedback is very important and we should integrate that into our daily life.

Finally, 12 weeks have pass and we are at the end of the module, I definitely feel that I will apply what I have learn from this module on the other modules during my course. Feedback will play an important part in my future assignments as I feel that integrating feedbacks to my future assignments will bring benefits to me.

We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve. – Bill gates

Reader Response Draft 4

In the article “Explosive growth in Asian cities: Bright ideas to 'seize the urban moment’” by Khanna (2015), the author mentions that Asian cities have become the icon of the world's urban development trend within this decade. Asian cities are having population influx which forces these cities to expand. It is also a challenge for huge cities to provide essential services like water and housing. According to the author South-east Asia cities tackle this problem with their “flexible governments, resourceful citizens and local infrastructure innovation." Using of technological applications like QLUE can help reduce social challenge like water and flooding. The author highlights that city governments should be “generative” and not only invest in infrastructure but also use it to produce innovative “business models” that help economic growth.

While I agree to an extent that both Asia and Southeast Asia governments need to do more to improve the life of their people in their countries, governments have to make use of this opportunity when urbanization takes place in the country or city. I feel that the poorer people in South-east Asia countries will not get to enjoy benefits like improved education, healthcare and social services from this urbanization opportunity. As the benefits are inaccessible with Southeast Asia countries like Laos and Myanmar are poorer in nature and they cannot keep up with the stress from providing essential needs like housing and water to the people due to the impact of the urbanization.

Firstly, the article “Explosive growth in Asian cities: Bright ideas to 'seize the urban moment’” by Khanna (2015) examines Indonesia as one case study which describes the strategic approach that used by the Indonesian government like infrastructure upgrades or the use of advanced technology to decrease the impact of urbanization and also to contribute in the development of the country. The writer mentions that Indonesia faced overcrowding in its cities due to the problem from mass migration. It has also been mentioned in the article “Overpopulated Jakarta” (2010) mentions that it is not hard to see the problem of congestion in Jakarta and “slums” can be seen in many areas in the city which also include the river bank. The editorial also reports that the city government issued a bylaw that only allows the “entry of migrants into the city, with only those who have guaranteed jobs allowed to live in the city, while officers of the city public order agency often conduct raids against illegal residents.” But those efforts still fail to solve the problem of overcrowding in the city. As the population grew every day and as the demand of essential needs like housing and water grows; more social challenges may also pop out. Therefore, I can conclude that the poorer people in South-east Asia countries will suffer even more as times goes by with the lack of the essential needs like housing and water in their country.

Secondly, Khanna (2015) writes in the article that the use of the advanced technologies can help decrease the impact of such social issues arising from urbanization. The writer talks about Jakarta taking advantage of a “crowd-sourcing mobile application” called QLUE that allows its residents to report to the authorities on any local matters such as flooding, waste collection or traffic immediately. It was reported in Woetzel (2014) that adapting of newly advanced technology is fast in ASEAN. For example, mobile phones can be found almost everywhere across the ASEAN region but there is a significant difference in “digital readiness and capabilities by country”. For example, Indonesia is ranked 64th in the world in terms of their readiness towards newly advanced technology, yet Laos being another ASEAN country is ranked at 109th in the world. The author has also mentions that there are differences in their digital development even between countries even when they are located near each other. Therefore, not all countries can use these newly advanced technologies like mobile application to their advantages as there are huge differences between countries, in terms of their business economic performance, governance practices and affordability of such advanced technology. In conclusion, I believe that the using of advanced technologies may not be suitable to all people in South-east Asia countries, especially to those poorer people as they do not have the ability to afford such advanced technologies as they are struggling to survive in their country.

In general, the article did emphasize on a few valid points on the way how countries like Indonesia can make use of this opportunity to improve their country using various methods like the use of advanced technologies or infrastructure upgrades. However, poorer people in South-east Asia countries like Myanmar and Laos, may not be able to enjoy the benefits like improved education, healthcare and social services from the impact of the urbanization at all. As these countries will not be able to keep up with the stress from the lack of the essential needs like housing and water due to the urbanization thread in their countries and cities.

(833 words)

References

Khanna , P. (2015, June 11). Explosive growth in Asian cities: Bright ideas to 'seize the urban moment'. Straits Times. Retrieved from http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/explosive-growth-in-asian-cities-bright-ideas-to-seize-the-urban-moment

Resources:

Overpopulated Jakarta. (2010, August 21). The Jakarta Post. Retrieved from http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/08/21/editorial-overpopulated-jakarta.html 

Woetzel,  J.,  Tonby, O.,  Thompson, F., Lee, G., & Burtt, P. (2014, November). Southeast Asia at the crossroads three paths to prosperity. Retrieved from https://www.google.com.sg/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBsQFjAAahUKEwjS3sTL16HIAhUFC44KHRr_AiI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.Mckinsey.com%2F~%2Fmedia%2FMcKinsey%2Fdotcom%2FInsights%2FEnergy%2520Resources%2520Materials%2FThree%2520paths%2520to%2520sustained%2520economic%2520growth%2520in%2520Southeast%2520Asia%2FMGI%2520SE%2520Asia_Full%2520report_November%25202014.ashx&usg=AFQjCNHaYlZNobirMywu-P5mZ_651 GM6Q&sig2= 2m 29dNFM3UPHereZd3OdYw&bvm=bv.104226188,d.c2E&cad=rja

One person that inspired me

Is there ever been a person in your life that had inspired you to do anything? For me that person will be my late grandmother. She is one of the most self-motivated person that I ever knew in my life. No matter what kind of problems she faced, she always seem to have a way to handle it. Sometimes I also wonder how she get that kind of strength to deal with so many challenges in life. Being able to raise 6 children including my father single handily makes me really wonder how she did it. I still remember whenever I visit her, she always welcome me with a smile. She just doesn't seem to have any problem in her life at all.

There was this particular scene that I can still remember despite it happened a few years ago. It was during a family dinner when she told our family that she has been diagnosed with leukaemia. The doctor told her that it is in the 2^nd stage and she needs to go for chemotherapy treatment as soon as possible. The usual rowdy family dinner become dead silent and weeping sound can be heard from everyone on the table. Whenever I think of this scene, it can still bring tears to me. However, my grandmother said “不要哭了，我还没死。我会没事的， 一定会好起来。”. In English which means “Do not cry, I'm not dead yet. I'll be fine and healthy in no time.”  She then told us not to be sad and be grateful as there is available medical treatment for her.

I still remember visiting her at the hospital when her condition became worsen. Whenever I went to the hospital to visit her, she always greet me with her signature smile. That was this particular day when I ask her how she feeling now. She told me that she is feeling better every day and the pain she suffer now will help her in fighting leukemia. She told me that she wants to get better so that she can see us growing up and forming our own family. She told me that she particularly hope that I can get into university as I am the eldest son in my family.

Sadly, after fighting with leukaemia for 5 years, she pass away. It was during my final year in polytechnic when she pass away. This greatly affected me and I was unable to concentrate in class at all. My closest friend, Rui Xuan was unable to bear to see me like that any more and decided to wake me up from this nonsense.  He said to me that “do you really think that this is what your grandmother want? She want you to excel in your academics and get into university.”  This was when I wake up and decided to work hard on my grade and get into university.

Now that I am in SIT, I want to finish this course and make her proud. This is both my and her dream and I hope to be able to do it. This is a short story of how a grandson is inspired by his own grandmother.

Difficult doesn’t mean impossible, it simply means that you have work hard.- unknown

Oral Presentation Reflection

On the 9^th November 2015, my group and I had our first formal presentation for the trimester.  The task of the day is to present our proposed solution that we came up with. I feel very nervous because my last oral presentation was 2 years ago.This presentation is very special to me as this will be my first time doing a presentation without any cue card.

I was feeling excited for the presentation as I will be sharing our solution to the class.I knew that it will be a fun and exciting experience as we will be answering questions from the class during the question and answer section. I feel that the questions from the class can definitely help us understand the flaws of the solution and make improvement on it.

I tried my best during the presentation and it went pass so quickly. My peers feedback to me that I was speaking so fast when I am presenting to them. I realise my mistake and I should have slow down my pace so that the audience can understand the content that I am sharing with them. During  the presentation, I also forgotten what I wanted to say during the slides and I decided to take a look at my phone to remember what I wanted to present. Lucky for me, I manage to get back on track to finish the presentation. I was very happy that the presentation slides were well received by the class because the team and I spent a lot of effort and time on it.

I was glad the presentation is over. From all the feedbacks I got from my peers, I will learnt from my mistakes and improve for my presentation in the future.  

“learn, unlearn and relearn”