N e w s l e t t e r o f E n g i n e e r i n g S c i e n c e P r o g r a m m e

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Congratulations to the Outstanding Graduating Class 2012

ESP’s third batch of 42 engineering science students received their B.Eng. (Engineering Science) degree scrolls from NUS President Prof Tan Chorh Chuan at the University Cultural Centre on the evening of 11 July 2012. This batch of graduates achieved a 21.4% of 1st class honors, 31.0% of 2nd class upper honors and 21.4% of 2nd class lower honors. A relatively high percentage (21.4%) of this cohort went on to pursue graduate studies. For example, Luo Shi will be reading his PhD in Materials Science & Engineering at the California Institute of Technology and Liu Haohui his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering, NUS under the NGS scholarship. Also ESP graduates have found all kinds of employment such as Engineering and Scientific Officer in DSO, Yield Enhancement Engineer in Global Foundries, Equipment Engineer in Micron Semiconductor Asia Pte Ltd, Offshore Engineer in Saipem Singapore, Graduate Engineer in ABB Singapore, Civil Engineer in Jurong International, Design Engineer in Halliburton Pte Ltd, Associate in Monetary Authority of Singapore, Analyst in DSTA, Research Engineer in Solar Energy Research Institute Singapore, Project Engineer in Schneider Electric, Equipment Engineer in REC Group and Software Engineer in Jayeson Solutions. For more information, please refer to: http://www.esp.nus.edu.sg/news.htm

This batch also has a few first. Zhu Yinchao graduated with a double degree - B.Eng. (Engineering Science) and B.Sc.,

Goh Tian is the first ESP and Global Engineering Programme student to complete the programme in 3 years, Khor Shu

Heng completed the programme in 3.5 years and 10 students graduated with B.Eng. (Engineering Science) and a minor in either Technopreneurship or Physics or Mathematics. 9 students went for the Student Exchange Programme in

France, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and USA, 4 students went for the NUS Overseas College Programme in Sweden,

China and USA, 1 student participated in the JASSO short stay research programme at Osaka University, 2 students participated in the Caltech-NUS Exchange under the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) programme

and 1 student participated in the Singapore-MIT Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Contd.. on page 2

ESP graduates celebrating a joyous moment on the commencement day on 11 July 2012 On the right, Prof Wang presenting the Best Final Year Project Prize to Goh Tian (top) & Wong Tse Jian (bottom)

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ESP & ME Engineers join hands for BreakThru Invention

Research team headed by ESP Associate Dr Palani Balaya with ESP and Mechanical Engineering students have once again come up with a breakthrough invention with the commonly found sodium for the next-generation rechargeable batteries that feature fast-charging and high performance for stationary storage applications. This new kid star (sodium), could overtake lithium batteries in the near future, especially for large scale grid storage applications, besides being more environmentally friendly and easy to recover at a fraction of the cost of lithium metal.

Currently, lithium-ion batteries are the preferred energy storage device for most consumer electronics as well as electric vehicles. They have proven to be effective because they are long lasting with high energy density, yet compact and lightweight. However lithium is a scarcity and may not meet proliferating needs of the future. Sodium, on the other hand, is the sixth most abundant element on the Earth’s crust.

Dr Balaya emphasized, “Sodium-ion batteries are still in the nascent stage but we expect them to be inexpensive and durable. By using a simple synthesis strategy, we have successfully developed phosphate nanostructures with an integrated conductive network for facile insertion and extraction of sodium ions. This method yields high quality porous electro-active materials which exhibits superior sodium storage, compared to other currently known procedures. Sodium batteries from this phosphate material can be charged or discharged within 1.5 min (40C) – and up to 30,000 cycles. So far, the research community has only achieved a performance for a charging/discharging rate of one to two hours with 100 to 300 cycles.”

Dr Balaya has also successfully led another project, in synthesizing bronze phase titanium dioxide (TiO2-B) as an alternative anode for lithium-ion batteries. “We have developed a method for producing practical, commercial grade electrodes for Li-ion battery using highly porous architecture of long, interconnected TiO2-B nanofibers (see Figure 1). The method requires low levels of conductive carbon additives, unlike other current methods. Based on these approaches, a battery could be charged to 75% full capacity within 10 minutes and

completely charged (250 mAh/g) in an hour. Furthermore storage capability is significantly greater than existing fast charging materials,such as lithium titanate, which only has a theoretical capacity of 175 mAh/g. “This is yet another breakthrough” said Dr Balaya.

Dr Balaya has filed a US Provisional Patent for this invention as well as his work on sodium-ion batteries. His research team on these projects includes Dr K Saravanan and Liu Bing on sodium-ion cells and Chad William Mason and Chee Keong Ivan Yeo on TiO2-B.

(From left) Chad William Mason (Research Engineer), Ashish Rudola (graduate student), Sergio Hidalgo (Intern from Univ of

California, Berkeley) and Team Leader Dr Palani Balaya

Figure 1 Microscope images of TiO2-B commercial-grade

Contd..from page 1

The graduating class 2012 won many awards: Wong Tse Jian received the Lee Kuan Yew Gold Medal, the IES Gold Medal, NUSS (Gold) Medal for Outstanding Achievement, Long Service Award 2012, JN Reddy Book Prize and Best Final Year Project Prize; Goh Tian also received the Best Final Year Project Prize; Foo Wei Jian the CPG Prize; Lew Jen Sern the FoE Innovation and Research Award 2012; Khor Shu Heng, Wong Tse Jian, Foo Wei Jian and Zhang Haoran won the Student Achievement Awards 2012 for bagging the 2nd prize in the IDEERS 2010 Competition; Aqdas Nida and Wong Kin Mun the Student Achievement Awards 2012 for community projects; Tang Muzhi the Silver Medal in NTU Taekwondo Open Championship 2009; Deepan Balasubramaniam, Foo Wei Jian, Khor Shu Heng and Zhang Haoran for the Commendation Prize in the Novel Automobile Barrier Challenge 2011. Students in this batch also managed to publish 5 journal papers and file 2 patents!

Prof Wang presenting the CPG Book Prize to Foo Wei Jian

Talk on SeaFEM Mr Manuel López Rodríguez, International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE) gave a talk to ESP students on 30 May 2012.

He spoke about SeaFEM being the state-of-the-art potential flow solver developed in CIMNE, dedicated for seakeeping analysis. He said, once coupled with other codes for aero- or structural dynamics, it can be further used to perform complex two-way coupling analysis of aeroelastic + structural assessment (including fatigue). Other than the traditional time costing Navier-Stokes

approach to fluid-structure interaction simulations, SeaFEM provides a feasible solution to the naval and offshore design industry. In the talk, the basic aspects of SeaFEM were introduced through a simple tutorial example on the analysis of a typical wave energy harvester.

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Prof Wang flanked by Mr Alex (left) and Mr Manuel Lopez (right)

Dr Adrian Koh wins 3rd Prize for Best Poster in Intl Conference for EAPs 2012

ESP Associate Dr Adrian Koh’s poster garnered the Third Prize for the Best Poster by popular votes at the International Conference for Electromechanically Active Polymers (EAPs) for Transducers and Artificial Muscles held on 29–30 May 2012, at Potsdam, Germany. As a result of his interesting research, he has been invited by the executive committee to deliver a two-hour lecture in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in Oct 2012, for the EuroEAP Training School. This conference was inaugurated last year at Tirrenia, Italy with EAP pioneers like Ron Pelrine (pioneer of soft actuators series and generators), Yoshihito Osada (pioneer of ionic polymer metal composites, laying the foundation for soft robots), and Zhigang Suo (pioneer in theoretical modeling of soft active materials).

This year’s conference received more than 350 abstract submissions, of which 60 were accepted. Invited speakers presented topics on CNT-based conductive polymers for giant actuation, ionic gels as optical diffractors, an artificial eye made of dielectric elastomers and ferroelectric polymers with cellular structures – a piezo-polymer with coupling constant of 10 times larger than piezoceramics.

Dr Koh presented his work on “Dielectric Elastomer Generators: Capacity, Design and Performance”. His oral presentation managed to garner interest from Academics from Institutions in Germany, Switzerland, Greece and Japan. Industry players from Bayer (US) and Chiba Chemicals (Osaka, Japan) have also expressed interest in developing new elastomer materials for energy harvesting. During the interactions with the participants, collaboration was formed with University of Athens, to develop an efficient mechanical system to harvest ocean wave energy. The aim is to breach the “Betz Limit” for motion-based generators using elastomer as the medium for energy generation.

Recent Achievements of ESP Staff

Prof CM Wang received the IES Outstanding Volunteer Award 2012. This award was given for his volunteer work as the Editor-in-Chief of the Civil & Structural Engineering Journal called IES Journal Part A, since 2007.

Dr Shailendra Joshi was appointed a member of the Editorial Board of Materials Science and Engineering: A (Elsevier) - and Journal of Surfaces and Interfaces of Materials (American Scientific Publishers) .

Dr Palani Balaya has been awarded 7th NRF-POC grant to develop his ideas on the next generation batteries into a prototype that can be commercialized in the market in collaboration with a Singaporean company.

Dr Palani Balaya’s research group members comprising Kuppan Saravanan, Liu Bing and Chad Mason received the “Young Investigator Award” for their best poster presentation on “Novel Porous Sodium ion insertion host for Sodium-ion Battery Application” at the International Meeting on Lithium Batteries (IMLB-12) at Jeju, Korea during 17-22 June 2012. Dr Palani Balaya research group also received “Best Poster Award” for the presentation on “Enhanced Lithium Storage Activity by Conversion Reaction in MoO3” by Srirama Hariharan, Zhang Haoran

and Palani Balaya at the International Conference of Young Researchers on Advanced Materials, July 1-6, 2012 Singapore.

ESP Adjunct A/Prof Liu Zishun has been appointed the Executive Director of the International Centre for Applied Mechanics (ICAM) in Xi’an Jaotong University (XJTU). The mission of ICAM is to attract young talents to do research at the forefront of mechanics and its most promising applications of our time. ICAM also aims to enhance international research collaboration with leading research groups in the world in applied mechanics. Zishun was also appointed as a ShanQin Chair Professor in XJTU.

Dr Adrian Koh poses with his winning Poster @ EAP Conference in Potsdam

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ESP Students Design Sensors to Boost Energy Efficiency and Sustainability

Do you have a window in your office or house that is intelligent enough to let in sunlight when needed, and to automatically draw the shade if it becomes too glaring and warm for comfort? Or a nursery which takes care of itself where watering is concerned? If you don't, then ESP students have the answers!

Their answers lie in the design of sensors – a theme which Year-3 ESP students explore each year. This year, under the mentorship of A/Prof Anjam Khursheed who is also with the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Dr Ernest Chua , Department of Mechanical Engineering, the students worked on the use of sensors in their solutions for boosting energy efficiency and sustainability. The smart window and rain sensor projects won ESP Distinction Award -- as well as another project on green buildings equipped with sensors to automatically adjust humidity and temperature.

Said Melvin Ang, who wrote the research paper on the smart window, “Transistor Thermal Sensor for Automated Window Shutter System in Energy Efficient Building Designs” with Terrance Low and Raghav Malhotra: “We propose a smart window concept whereby an automated shutter system will lower the solar shade when the temperature is above a certain threshold. The sensors will react to the local environment in real time so the indoor environment is automatically maintained at optimum thermal comfort level as well as sufficient lighting.”

The ESPian team members are also excited about the possibility of delivering their technology in the form of a DIY package so that home owners can fit it to their windows. A/Prof Khursheed said that their proposed system is reliable and requires low maintenance. Easy to fabricate, it can be installed immediately for comfort and savings in energy. The other award-winning project, “Design of Rain Sensor to regulate Irrigation in Gardening” was by David Chang, Clement Kwok and Cher Kiat Yan. Said Clement Kwok, “Over and under-watering of ornamental plants, especially, can cause of a host of problems. Essentially, our system is made from extremely simple materials which are readily available, such as funnel, copper wire and even a dustbin. We have demonstrated that we can make a robust rainfall intensity sensor within a tight budget.” The sensing system can then be hooked onto a programme to generate signals to control the awnings – to either allow the plants to take in more rain, or to block off the rain. This team not only researched on the design of their sensor, but also the watering needs of ornamental plants such as orchids.

The third winning project, “Humidity and Thermal Sensors for Human Comfort Control in Green Buildings” by Youyang Cheng, Clement Liew and Wu Lingxue consists of an array of sensors that can be linked to fuzzy algorithms to optimize air conditioning. Said Mr Cheng, “Savings is multiplied when an array of humidity and temperature sensors is used to monitor real-time 3D humidity and temperature distributions in different rooms. These sensors in turn activate control algorithms to ensure human comfort through the right level of air conditioning. We have shown our system to be comparable to commercial ones, yet significantly cheaper.”

“Buildings typically use a great deal of energy to maintain its temperature and humidity. This project enables smart control of temperature and humidity and has a huge potential to save energy in providing thermal comfort conditions to buildings’ occupants,” said Dr Ernest Chua.

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Prof Wang (extreme left), Dr Chua & A/Prof Khursheed (extreme right) with ESP Design Sensors project students (from left) David Chang, Damien Cher, Clement Kwok, Terrance Low, Melvin Ang, Raghav Malhothra, Youyang Cheng, Wu Lingxue and Clement Liew

Team working on the smart window project researched on how natural light can help workers to

be more productive. Choice of blinds and shades is also factored into their design of the sensing system.

Too much rainfall can kill your orchids. This team working on rain sensors also did market research and

interviewed nursery owners on their needs & challenges.

Recent Achievements of ESP Students

Wong Tse Jian received the Lee Kuan Yew Gold Medal, the IES Gold Medal and the NUSS Medal for Outstanding Achievement at the NUS Commencement Ceremony. Moreover, Tse Jian and Goh Tian clinched the Best Final Year Research Project Prizes for 2012.

Foo Wei Jian bagged the CPG Prize 2012 for obtaining the best results for the five core modules of the Energy Systems specialization.

Lew Jen Sern received the Certificate for High Achievement under FOE’s 26th Innovation and Research Award (2012) for his project entitled “ Advances in Luminescence-Based Characterization of Silicon Wafer Solar Cells”.

Benjamin Kho received the Student Achievement Award 2012 for Distinguished Leadership on 17th February 2012 at UCC for his untiring service to ESP Student Club as Treasurer (2010) and President (2011).

Ng Wee Hoe was awarded the FoE Colours Award for outstanding participation in CCA on 13 July 2012.

ESP Alumnus Muhd Ibnur in the News Again!

Mr Muhd Ibnur, ESP Graduate (2011) continues to make News! He has turned down an enviable job offer with Google, to continue his passion in keeping this earth green, with a volunteer-driven non-profit organization called GUI (Ground-Up Initiative). In a recent interview with Berita Harian (Singapore newspaper in Malay language), Ibnur said he is working at GUI’s Sustainable Living Kampung in Bottle Tree Park at Yishun, driving key projects to create solutions for a sustainable future. He says he does not mind sacrificing a good job in USA for the fulfillment he finds in GUI. “I hope others too will form their own innovation teams to help solve problems facing our local community, our neighbours, and our world.”

One of the products which Ibnur has worked on at GUI was a speaker for smart phones, made from bamboo which has received a good response from countries such as Hungary and Germany. An improved version will be marketed in July. In his talk in March with Challenge:Future, a global competition, he challenges young people to come out with innovative sustainable solutions. In 2010, Ibnur was part of NUS Engineering students team to win the top prize for their idea, "SocialCV: Connecting Youth to Opportunities" -- an online platform to help universities connect their students to opportunities and to help youths build their credibility in business innovations.

Ibnur (ESP) with Veera from ME Dept, co-founded the Sustainable Living Lab (SL2), a semi-outdoor community lab and prototyping facility striving to solve every sustainability challenge of the 21st century on Earth and beyond, by making everyone a maker. They hope to nurture the Kampung Spirit of Ground-Up Innovation here in Singapore and in Asia. SL2 is also the technology and innovation arm of GUI. In the process of fabricating their products, they engage socially marginalised communities like single parents and youth-at-risk in the hope of honing their skills and bringing self-worth into their lives. They were also founding members of the Humanitarian Engineering Alliance (HEAL) under the Institution of Engineers Singapore (IES), and SL2 has conducted disaster simulations for engineering professionals as well as hands-on practicum courses for engineering undergraduates who aspire to be humanitarian engineers engaged in disaster relief and rural development. During these hands-on learning experiences, engineers were trained to iterate prototypes like solar cookers, smokeless stoves and transitional shel-ters while navigating through the complex world of humanitarian affairs.

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ESP Graduate, Mr Muhd Ibur, youth extraordinaire.

Congratulations to Singapore Team 2

ESP student Clement Kwok along with students from Singapore, Korea, Japan, China, Philippines and Indonesia took part in the International Business Plan Competition held in Seoul, South Korea in April 2012. This year’s competition was held in Korea and it was organized by the Korea Economic Daily and supported by the KT&G.

Twenty students were selected from SMU, NTU, NUS & SIM and divided into 2 teams to represent Singapore in this competition. Singapore Team 1 and Singapore Team 2 faced tough competition from their Asian competitors from neighboring countries and Clement was very jubilant that he belonged to Singapore Team 2 that walked away with the first prize and declared Champions of 2012 Asian Students’ Venture Forum! The prize money of USD2000 that was shared amongst the winning team members.

Clement Kwok (second from right - top row) with Team 2 members who won the first prize in the Intl Business Plan Competition held in Seoul, South Korea

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NUS Students Develop Touch-Screen Sensitive Winter Gloves

Keeping your winter gloves on while using a touch-screen device is now possible, thanks to a pair of touch-screen sensitive gloves designed by four enterprising students from the National University of Singapore. The idea for ISGLOVES took root when two members of the team went abroad for student exchange programmes last year.

"When I was in Sweden, I faced difficulty using my iPhone... and that was why we came up with this," said team leader Charmain Tan. "I saw one of my colleagues using her nose to touch the screen of her device. When I asked her about it, she told me that she was trying to unlock her phone," said team member Fitzkhoon Liang.

Touch-screens rely on detecting the electrical charge in the fingertips. With this in mind, the team embedded conducting fibres in the glove. This allows users to access their devices with any part of their hand, be it fingers, palms or even knuckles. "People are very fascinated that we (students) could come up with such things... When we presented this solution, everybody said, 'Finally, there's a solution to this problem,'" said team member Tan Yan Liang.

After months of development, the innovation finally made its debut in Sweden last year, just in time for winter. Retailing at about S$100 a piece, 100 gloves were sold within three weeks. The team recently won an award for its innovation at DEMO Asia 2012 - one of the biggest start-up competitions in the region.

Excerpts from Channel News Asia/stories/Singaporelocalnews/1193726 (- CNA/cc/wm)

A Chess Champion in our midst..

ESP 3rd Year Student Melvin Ang was appointed as the teamNUS Chess team captain in his 2nd year and has now taken up the team manager role in his 3rd year. He has participated in numerous local tournaments, such as the Nee Soon CC and the 1st FIDE blitz tournament where he was the runner up and the Thomson CC Chess Club Championship where he came in 5th position. In the annual GACC International Inter-Varsity Chess Championship 2010, Melvin was part of the NUS team which managed to obtain an overall 5th position out of 148 participants from all over the world. Melvin was pronounced as the International Chess Team Player of the Year 2010/2011. He was awarded & felicitated at the annual team NUS Award Ceremony on 28th October 2011. He also contributed as the Team Manager for the Engineering Faculty Chess Team which won the Gold Medal in the Inter Faculty Games.

Melvin says: “I am also a part time chess coach giving chess lessons during the weekend at the PowerChess Centre and to Anglo Chinese Primary school students on Fridays. Chess is a brilliant intellectual game that helps in our thinking process, increases our mental stamina, enhances our concentration and keeps our mind sharp. With these benefits in sight, it is no wonder that in other parts of the world such as the USA,

ESPian Inventor Fitzkhoon Liang (left) with Co-Inventor Yan Liang from ME Dept, NUS

Editor’s Note: During his stint in NOC programme in Sweden, Fitzkhoon together with other students from NUS, came up with this innovative ISGLOVES that also won the Red Dot Award (Honorable Mention)! Previous winning entries of the Red Dot Awards include the iPhone 4 and BMW6 Series.

Melvin Ang (second from left, second row) with the GACC 2010 Chess Champions

ESP Staff Visited ACS (I) ESP participated in an outreach event in the Anglo Chinese School (Independent) on 25 April 2012. ESP Associates Dr Jeroen Van Kan, Dr Andrew Bettiol and Dr Adrian Koh assisted curious parents on their queries about the Engineering Science Programme. The parents were impressed to see the achievements of ESP gained in a very short time.

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ESP Third Student Cohort Celebrates..

The third cohort of ESP students partied at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel, Singapore after completing their final examinations on 11 May 2012. ESP staff, members of ESP student subclub committee and 12 engineering science students from University of Toronto joined in the party. Welcoming everyone were the party organizers headed by Fitzkhoon, Almeric, Alvin and Haoran as well as a caricature artist who was kept busy capturing the mood of individuals on the canvas.

The buffet dinner comprises fusion food to cater for the different nationalities and dietary requirements. Fun activities for the evening include identifying celebrities whose faces were only partially exposed, games involving blowing of cards from tables except for the joker card, rolling marbles on the table top to reach a sticky tape without falling off the table, building an optimal staple pathway for a marble to roll of the centre of the table to the edge in the least possible time. The UoT students used water bubbles and confettis to kick in the celebratory mood.

In the Karoake segment, Prof Wang sang Elvis’ song Can’t help falling in love with ESP and Mr Tay belted out a number of Hokkien songs to the delight of the audience. The UoT students cheerful rendition of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance spiced up the spirit in the hall. The best of them all was when the students crowded behind Haoran and Fitzkhoon to sing an inspiring Chinese song about not giving up!

The evening ended with lucky draw prizes, photo taking and Prof Wang’s farewell speech which was appropriately accompanied with the reading of Dr Seuss’ beautiful passage on Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by a number of ESP students.

ESP Welcomes New Assistant Manager 

Ms Iris Ng Siew Bee   Iris graduated from Nanyang Techological University with a B.Eng. (Civil) Hons and

M.Sc. (Human Factors Engineering). Previously, she was with the Ministry of Education

as an Education Officer. Iris is passionately involved in volunteer work locally and overseas. She hopes to spread the volunteering spirit to the ESP students and to see more

active contribution to the community during their free time.  Iris’ motto is Live each day to the fullest and pass on the good experiences.

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For any enquiry or feedback, please contact: Engineering Science Programme National University of Singapore 9 Engineering Drive 1, EA #06-10 Singapore 117576

Website: www.esp.nus.edu.sg Tel No.: (65) 6516 8854 Fax No.: (65) 6775 4710 Email: espbox1@nus.edu.sg

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ESP third batch of students celebrated their graduation party@Grand CopthorneWaterfront Hotel on 11 May 2012