Outreach Program

SIAA Outreach to Polytechnics and ITE

SIAA (Singapore Industrial Automation Association) aims to be the leading hub for knowledge in the application of automation technology and business catalyst in the region. As part of the Local Enterprise and Association Development Program (LEAD) for industry development, SPRING-IE Singapore has provided a grant to SIAA to organise training courses and outreach programmes for students.

The purpose is to address the decline in students entering the Engineering and Automation Profession, and to give students a clearer view of the industry. Through their program, they hope to inspire student interests in Engineering and Technology and demonstrate that Engineering is essential to developing products and services that improve our daily lives.

Based on initial feedback, we realise that for the program to be successful, it must be fun, has creative elements, low cost and easy to use.

1) Fun - there is no doubt that students are familiar with phones and it may be easier to interest them to explore how they can use it to solve engineering problems compared to say the PLC or the embedded controller.

2) Creative elements - the PC as the instrumentation platform has been exploited for some time now but for the smartphone it is just the beginning. Everyday we read about the interest generated by applications written for the iPhone, the google Android, Windows Mobile and the soon to be open source Symbian S60. Even Intel admits that its competitor is not AMD but ARM, whose processor found in most smartphones.

3) Low Cost - the EMANT380 is S$218 (US$159)

4) Easy to use - with the IE Singapore funding, we intend to provide workshops for both students and staff. Besides EMANT intend to build on our existing app notes for the EMANT300 USB DAQ (like measuring heart rate, blood pressure, weight, temperature, respiration, ECG etc), so that students have examples that they can USE, COPY and MODIFY to their new solutions.

Some application areas that can be considered and aligned with existing government initiatives include

• elderly monitoring (silver hair program)
• energy conservation instrumentation
• gaming human interfaces

Workshops Conducted

The following are paid workshops. However as part of the SIAA outreach program, SIAA does sponsor the workshops for eligible Singapore educational institutions (Schools to Universities, private or public). Please contact us if you are interested to have the workshop conducted for your staff and/or students.

1) Discover the World of Gaming Console Design & Development

Singapore Polytechnic Magellan Staff Workshops series 8 Oct 2008

Learn how to build a "homebrew Wii" device that interacts with the computer graphics. In the 2 hour workshop, explore the use of a bluetooth gadget with sensors for interacting with simple games and animation running on the computer screen.

2) Overview of Bluetooth DAQ Applications

Singapore Polytechnic 28 Jan 2009

3 hour staff workshop covered the following:

• Wireless Data Acquisition with LabVIEW on Windows
• Game development using Python and Pygame on Windows
• Smartphone development using Python and Symbian S60
• Examples programs include
  • analog input
  • analog output
  • digital input
  • digital output
  • sensors
    • photodiode: light intensity
    • thermistor: temperature
    • pressure
    • strain gauge
    • accelerometer
    • magnetic compass

3) Smartphone development using Python and Symbian S60

Republc Polytechnic 25 Feb 2009

2 hour staff workshop covered the following:

• installation of S60 emulator with bluetooth
• run python (console and GUI) examples for
  • analog input
  • analog output
  • digital input
  • digital output
  • sensors
    • photodiode: light intensity
    • thermistor: temperature
    • pressure
    • strain gauge

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