Summer blog 2008

The final term this year was far much stressful than the autumn term, I never thought I would say that about any other term. There was not much going on in the term apart from the exams and trying to sort out our final year projects.

When the term started we thought it would be much more relaxed as we only had to worry about exams. The only problem with that was, the exams were a very big problem. We had a few revision lectures which really put the exams in perspective. They really do test your knowledge from the whole year, then you have the lecturers who are slightly horrible and decide to mix content from both the first and second year.

Summer term is very short, so the library is full day and night. I was revising for about 6 weeks non stop to cover the content. I had quite a few sleepless nights as half the exams are maths based and the other half test your knowledge of electronics and biology. Once exams were over we really did feel we deserved a break as they took everything out of you.

In the latter part of the term we then had to pick our final year project. The process was quite long and tedious. You are given a booklet, depending on your course, which has a listing of about 300 hundred projects, you read through each one and obviously make a choice as to which project you would like to do. The Computer Science and Cybernetics course allows you to do projects from any of the two departments. The projects range from writing programs that interface with the brain, to an autonomous robot that can balance on a ball. So there is a wide range. However, you do have the choice of coming up with your own project which obviously has to be approved by the department and a board of lecturers.

I decided to come up with my own project. I will be making an apparatus that helps with post stroke rehabilitation. This will be in the form of an exo-skeleton, which will be attached to the non-functioning limb. I am focusing on the upper limb, the arm. It is a mixture of biology, physics, electronics and computer programming, which is essentially what cybernetics, is. My project was approved and I am in the process of making initial designs for testing.

I did manage to pass my exams first time round, but weighing my options and looking at the amount of work and intensity of the year, I have down graded my course to the Computer Science and Cybernetics Bsc, not the Meng. The work load for the Meng is truly for someone who can with stand it and it is very time demanding. I believe there are only about 4 people doing Meng part of my course. Most people changed to a Bsc or dropped out.

This will be my final year and I am looking forward to the end of it.

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