Saturday, May 28
Module Reviews
AY15/16 Sem 1
NM4227 - LAJ1201 - CS4249 - CP3201 - CP4101
Whew! Sorry I've been super busy sorting my life out here in the States. 
These are the modules I took last year. Since I took them a considerably long time ago, I might not be able to recall too much detail.
As usual you can find my semester files here.
NM4227 Playable Art
In this module, you learn about
art games, do readings and make art games.
For an NM module, it was a little more on the
heavy side with 3 reflections, 1 essay and 2 projects (also depends on how much you have to carry your team).
I had a super fun time! My two game projects, "Marry Lah" and "Despairity" were
showcased in the NM art exhibition,
Random Blends 
And as usual, since Alex (the bestest NM lecturer) was teaching it, everybody was in good hands.
Assessment
Basically your projects are 60% of your grade and the rest depend on your essays.
Lectures
Lectures are very relaxing especially towards the end where you get to playtest everybody else's games. Just go with the flow
Essays
I always did badly in Alex Mitchell's essays so what I did this time was ask him many questions about his requirements. I ended up doing pretty well for the reflections and artist essays.
In the case of my
game artist review, I split my sections into About artist, About their games, Thesis Statement, Analysis of 2 Games (further split into Gameplay, Artist Intentions, Critique), and Conclusion. My artist this time was
Gregory Weir, and my thesis statement was "
The mix of interactivity and textual narrative in Weir’s games, if not well integrated, could hinder the player’s experience."
If you're going to take this module, choose an artist that has games on newgrounds/kongregrate. Why?? So you can use the
online comments section as evidence to your critique.
PROTIP:
Always update your teacher on your ideas and drafts. Not only you get tips and a better feel of what they want, think of it as extra word count. When your teacher starts to grade your work, they already have an idea of what you're going to write. I believe it makes them think your work is easy to understand, but in actual fact, you've already explained your ideas to them before, and their mind will fill in information automatically.
Projects
As usual, groups in NM modules are
randomly assigned (yay)
Project 1 is a
board game. My team had lots of fun designing and playtesting our game, Marry Lah, which basically favours married couples inside the game just like how Singapore gives benefits to married couples but not singles.
We had to submit the board game and a copy of game rules.
Project 1 Board Game
Project 2 is a
computer game. Since I was the only programmer in my group I programmed the game. It's the first time I didn't have to do the art too! Honestly the artist did a really great job. The producer was also really hardworking and took care of the submissions and presentations for us. The designer was nice to work with as well.
You can play our game
HERE.
Project 2 Computer Game
What I loved most was getting to play other people's games!
10/10 recommended module.
Final grade: A+
LAJ1201 Japanese 1
Assessment
CA (formula not released)
|
75%
|
Final exam
|
25%
|
I had such a great time in Tokyo
... So, I
made the mistake of taking took this module.
If you've had little to zero experience in Japanese like me, you'll find the workload to be medium-heavy. (Heavy, if you're an arts student lol)
Class participation is important. Before every tutorial, you're required to complete homework exercises in the homework packet, and memorize a japanese dialogue. There is also a quiz every lesson which means you'll be memorizing ~30 new vocab every week. The homework, quizzes and participation add up to 75% of your total grade. So if you're a quiet student like me, you'll lose a bit of points
The
final exam consists of oral, listening and written assessments.
- Everybody dies in the listening quiz in the final - don't worry, your suffering is short. My friends' advice was to listen to the recordings given with the textbook. Don't just watch lots of anime - that didn't work out for me.
- For the oral, you must familiarize yourself with the kaiwa (会话？) in the textbook. The stuff tested is more or less what you hear in the recordings given with the textbook.
- For all written exams including the midterm and final, the most important book you should study is the Grammar helper book (the light pink one). The textbook can be largely ignored.
Final grade: B+
CS4249 Phenomena And Theories Of Human-computer Interaction
Assessment
Assignment 1: AutoComPaste - Experiment Design and Analysis
|
25%
|
Assignment 2: Fitts Law, KLM, Cogtool
|
25%
|
Class participation
|
10%
|
In-class quizzes
|
10%
|
Final exam
|
30%
|
As a UX Designer, this was one of the most useful modules for my career. If you want to be a UX Researcher, this module has everything you need.
- I learned about proper HCI user research and experiment processes.
- I picked up R for statistical analysis.
- I picked up Cogtool to analyse the efficiency of interfaces.
- I learned useful stuff about humans such as memory, task modeling, biases, heuristics - things you should think about when designing interfaces.
The
assignments are quite time consuming - especially the first one, where you need to plan an experiment and get ~6 people you know to help you test an application. The experiment is very repetitive and boring for your tester, so you pretty much owe your testers big time afterwards
The
final exam is very doable if you study the material well and do past year papers. Make sure to attend the revision session because it will make you aware of some tricks they put into questions.
Final grade: A-
CP3201 Industry Seminar
This is an
ungraded module - you either get Participation (2MC) or none. I took it because I was short of a few points to graduate.
The
talks are interesting because people from different industries - health startups, banks, traditional software engineer companies - will come and talk to you about their work life. Of course this is their way to entice you to join them but it is a good opportunity to network if you're interested.
"
Join this module if you want to find out about all the jobs you DON'T want to have later on in your life" - a friend of mine
I skipped most of the talks but I still got my 2MCs.
CP4101 B.Comp. Dissertation
This is your famous FYP that spans two semesters.
However, you have to bid for your topic in Week 7 of the semester before. Remember to pick a good supervisor and most importantly a topic you have interest in. You have to spend one. year!!!
Some of my deliverables:
Efficiency analysis
Prototypes
Wireframes
Even though my FYP was heavy and I was so burnt out at the end, I got to research, design and code an entire app. To me, that's an accomplishment and I learnt a lot from my mentor :)
Alrighty - I have to sleep!! Going to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium tomorrow to see penguins and deep sea creatures
#byeresponsibilities
Labels: CP3201, CP4101, CS4249, design, fyp, LAJ1201, module reviews, NM4227, NUS, NUS module reviews, school
Tuesday, July 7
Module Reviews
AY14/15 Sem 2
CS3218 - NM2213 - NM4210 - CS3284 - CS3247
I'm so sorry for my ~2 months disappearance oh my gosh T_T Was really busy with work.
A lot of things happened and I shall make a personal post later. Here are my (super late) module reviews since MPE is around the corner! Module files and resources available too.
CS3218 Multimodal Processing in Mobile Platforms
Tutorials (Includes programming android apps on signal processing) | 20% |
Project | 40% |
Final (cheatsheet) | 40% |
Summary
It's a good module with relatively light workload and doable exam.
I learnt Android programming here, a valuable skill for my FYP. ヽ(*⌒∇⌒*)ﾉ
Making my first android app for CS3218...
First thing i must do: change the icon!
The Content
- The theory part is on sound and image processing & recognition, and there's a high emphasis on Fourier Transform. There is less breadth and more depth. I have zero interest in signal processing but still found the content interesting. It can get confusing at times though. So keep clarifying what you know with Prof Ng.
- The practical part requires you to read in sound signals from your phone and process themusing Fourier Transform. There is already a FT library that you can use.
The Professor
Prof Ng Teck Khim is probably one of the nicest professors in SoC. Since the class size was small, he took effort to get to know each and every one of us personally. He also encourages us to go for consultations all the time and is sincere in getting us to understand the content in depth.
Tips on doing well
- Unfortunately, you cannot skip lectures if you want to do well. Firstly, Prof Ng will know. Secondly, a lot of important material is taught VERBALLY. So take out your notetaking tools and write down whatever he says. If you don't understand, ask later.
- It can be a good or bad thing, but Prof Ng repeats what he says a lot.
- The later parts of the 8 programming assignments can be difficult. I'm not good at figuring out what uncommented code does D:
My grade: A
NM2213 Human Computer Interaction
Weekly tutorial | 20% |
Midterm (week 1-6) Close book | 30% |
Final exam Close book | 40% |
Participation | 10% |
Get module files
here.
Summary
This module should be renamed "Theory of HCI". It covers a lot of breadth, and is definitely useful! I apply some of the theories at my job now.
(For example, it's useful for designers to know that notifications can pop up at the corners of screens, as our peripheral vision notices movement better.)
The Professor
Dr Alex Mitchell again!!
He has a degree in HCI from University of Toronto so you're in good hands. His lectures are also engaging and interesting. He's like the only decent NM prof I've had. He listens, and is determined to make his modules better.
Tips on doing well
- Lectures - Just listen to Dr Mitchell talk. I didn't feel a need to take notes. Everything you need to know is mostly in the slides or textbook.
- Tutorials - You can figure out how to answer them using the textbook. I mostly got full marks just following it. Textbook is God, textbook is life
- Exam- ༼ つ•ﺪ͟͠• ༽つ Textbook is God, textbook is life. Exam will ask you a lot of "According to the textbook..." which tests you random lines from the textbook. You need to be detail oriented. There's quite a bunch of content to remember.
Since no past year papers are released, here are some example exam questions that I remember - for those who will be taking the module.
Example midterm questions:
- What is formative evaluation and what is summative evaluation? (has to do with software engineering cycle)
- Why is it that you tend to see more flicker on large screens than on small screens? (has to do with rods and cones in your eyes)
- You intended to search for a tool on Photoshop and thus, clicked the magnifying class icon. To your surprise, instead of a search bar, your canvas was zoomed in. What happened here? (has to do with slips and mistakes)
- You are watching a video of a man walking forward towards you. He walks by a bus stop and blocks it for a while. Even though he is getting bigger, you do not think he is actually getting bigger in size. Why? (Has to do with depth cues and law of size constancy)
- You are driving a car and notice the "fuel low" sign blinking in the corner of the dashboard. What makes it so easily noticeable? (has to do with peripheral vision)
Example finals questions:
- Why is it harder to define software principles compared to hardware principles? (under design rules)
- Even though face to face communication is primitive it is considered the most complex, why is this? (under communication)
- What kind of hierarchical model is Task Analysis? (under task analysis)
- What two dimensions does the textbook classify Design Rules under? (under design rules)
- Asking you which is the fastest KLM-calculated action (under cognitive models)
- Asking you why a certain CCT method was fired (under cognitive models)
My grade: A+
NM4210 User Experience Design
Group grades | 30% |
Student Presentation | 30% |
Tutorial/Practical Evaluation | 20% |
Class participation | 20% |
Get module files
here.
Summary
Although many NM students were content with this module, as a CS student,
I was disappointed. I am used to being disappointed by NM modules especially after NM3221 (a disaster), but this sets a record. (－‸ლ)
It wasn't the content I disliked. It's the way things were done in the module. A lot of things the lecturer did made me angry. So instead of a review, you can take this post as a
Musho Complaint.
The Content
One good thing about this module - The theory can be useful. You're taught how to do UX Design from Problem Analysis to Information Design to Interaction Design to Evaluation stage. Then you do these in your project! Note that there are many ways of approaching UX Design, and this is just one of them.
My Rant
Lecturer is a guest lecturer. Let's call
lecturer L.
L and his research team created a mobile app, we call this
S-app. It takes sensor data from your mobile phone and lets you access this data from a URL.
- All our tutorials are basically spent learning how to use S-app. The first two tutorials were essentially the same with a slight tweak.
- After each tutorial, we are then made to answer frustratingly long questionnaires about his app afterwards. There were like 50-100 questions, all of them made me feel highly uncomfortable. They asked me if I felt pleased, satisfied, happy, frustrated... essentially repeats of the same type of question. If you're making your user feel frustrated and uncomfortable, this is not how you test. Oh, and these tutorials are graded.
- He made us go back to school in recess week to be free guinea pigs to his research work, that has totally no relation to our work. He says it's so we learn how to evaluate. Cue another long questionnaire. These questionnaires are NOT ANONYMOUS. How can one force someone to answer honestly if your identity is revealed? Esp. if your grade depends on it!!! ᕙ( ︡'︡益'︠)ง
- For our project, he made us use S-app. Surprise. Did I say that S-app was android only? The iOS users in my group could not even run the project, or contribute much to its production. And for the record, this app was terribly slow.
- He purposely put one Computing student in each group to do the coding. Essentially, I did the majority of our project. Thankfully, my group members tried to help me where they could.
- Even though I've already done most of the work, he made my group members present the work I did. I was made to present the part that has no coding/design - Evaluation. I ended up directing that part as well - but luckily my group members helped me to evaluate. It's good that I was forced to do almost everything, but it's not really fair to me or the others.
- He videoed us without permission. In the last lecture, he showed a video of one of my friends testing his app. I asked that friend if he knew he was videoed. He said no. Who knows how many other people he videoed?!!
- He then proceeded to take our project codes and pasted it in his site with no permission asked and with ZERO CREDIT. (●__●)
To me, that was the most unethical person I've met. I don't believe he truly cared for our learning - why else would you force your students to answer these surveys repeatedly, make them come back in recess week for free, and make them use your app that you know iPhone users can't use?!! ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)
My grade: A+
CS3284 Media Technology Project II
Peer review of coding | 7.5% |
Peer review of system design | 7.5% |
Project Progress Report 4 | 7.5% |
Project Progress Report 5 | 7.5% |
Final Report / Documentation | 40% |
Project Presentation / Demo | 30% |
Get module files
here.
Not much to say for this one! It's a required module.
Prof for this was Prof Leow! He is super super super nice and I like him a lot!!! (✿◠‿◠)
I'd say your grade depends on how much your professor thinks you did. So you should meet up with him often, and talk to him about your progress, and
TELL HIM EVERY. SINGLE. DIFFICULTY. you face!! Because when outside evaluators evaluate you and ask you why you didn't do XXX or YYY, he will defend you.
My group members and I got along well with him. We also put in effort in the Peer Review presentations. It doesn't matter how cool your project is - as long as you show that you put in effort.
My grade: A+
CS3247 Game Development
PROJECT | 50% |
Assignments | |
| 40% |
Get module files
here.
I didn't do very well for this one so I don't think I'm in a position to give advice! I learnt how to use Unity for this one. This module also made me realize that 3D modelling is not for me!
I'd say how much you like this module depends on your project team members. if you have fun making your game, you'll enjoy the module.
Our game:
The content
🍬 For the lectures: From what I remember, there is Game Design, path finding algorithms, how networking is managed in online games, and game physics
etc etc. Content is somewhat interesting and muggable. I find that taking down notes in lectures is fairly important but most people don't do it. The exam did test some notes that I wrote down.
🍬 For the project: You can make any game that preferably has AI inside. Most of us use Unity. You can also choose to use school-loaned Oculus Rift, Leap Motion, Myo Armband and other cool game technologies (but you must learn their API of course)
🍬 For the lab: People don't really go. D: The content is way too much to squeeze into one lab session. It's more of learning skills to use in your project. If you are confident you can learn Unity yourself, don't have to go. As for learning Maya, you can just use Unity App Store 3D assets for your game.
The final
🍬 For the final, I strongly advise everyone to do the Past Year Papers because the format is more or less the same.
My grade: B+Labels: CS3218, CS3247, CS3284, module reviews, NM2213, NM4210, NUS, NUS module reviews
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