NRPjr Project

Synopses 2019

NANYANG RESEARCH PROGRAMME (JUNIOR RESEARCHER) Overview of Project Titles 2019

Project Code Category Project Title

ASEjr01 Sciences Initiation of a Monitoring Program to Assess the Impact of Extreme Urbanization on Marine Biodiversity

EEEjr01 Engineering Understanding Graph Structures through Games

EEEjr02 Engineering Gamification of Educational Modules - Digital Electronics

EEEjr03 Engineering Water Dielectric Resonator Antennas

MAEjr01 Engineering Investigating the Printability of Materials on a Novel Handheld 3D Printing Pen

NIEjr01 Business, Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences

Students' Perception of Oracy Skills Teaching Programs in Singapore

NIEjr02 Engineering Exploring Local Micro-Climates With Open-Source Sensors

NIEjr03 Sciences Development of Graphene / Metal Interfaces for Large Spin-Orbit Interaction

SCBEjr01 Engineering Cradle-to-Gate Life Cycle Analysis of Pharmaceutical Excipients

SPMSjr01 Sciences Visualizing Scientific Concepts in Nanoelectronics

NANYANG RESEARCH PROGRAMME (JUNIOR RESEARCHER) Project Synopses 2019

ASEjr01

Project Code ASEjr01

Title Initiation of a Monitoring Program to Assess the Impact of Extreme Urbanization on Marine Biodiversity

Category Sciences

Description Over the last two centuries, Singapore has undergone significant coastal modifications, allowing it to become one of the densest countries in the world. More than 96% of natural coastal habitats have been modified owing to shoreline development and extensive land reclamation (Singapore is almost 150 square kilometers larger than at its origin). Still, Singapore remains a biodiversity hotspot but the fragility of its biodiversity has been raised by the scientific community in recent years. Significant efforts have been made to gauge the diversity of several groups of organisms but marine microorganisms have been neglected. It is fundamental to evaluate 1) how urbanization-related coastal changes may affect living organisms, especially microorganisms that are at the base of the food chain, and 2) what the best building strategies are for better life conservation in order to conciliate coastal urbanization with biodiversity. Foraminifers, which are the most diversified group of testate (shelled) microorganisms in tropical coastal environments, have been repeatedly used in different places of the world to assess the impact of urbanization but have never been investigated in Singapore, which undergoes extreme coastal mutation. This project aims at assessing the microbiodiversity in distinct coastal marine habitats of Singapore, notably where significant urbanism and reclaimed land projects will occur: To face land shortage, population growth and in an effort of decentralization, the national urban planning authority of Singapore has scheduled substantial urban transformation in the years to come (http://www.mnd.gov.sg/landuseplan). A total of four new cities (regional centers) will be built, vacant state parcels will be used and turf clubs, golf courses and cemeteries possibly redeveloped. Additional land will be reclaimed on the sea. This preliminary study will serve as a milestone to develop joint education and research monitoring programs to study the evolution of marine biodiversity in coastal Singapore, with the final objective of comparing the biodiversity before, during and after urban modifications. Foraminifers will be studied for their diversity, functional properties and ecological significance at key land and coastal localities, where new coastal

developments and land reclamations are planned. Benthic foraminifers will be sampled at different water and sediment depths, on distinct substrates and coastal microhabitats in order to fully assess their diversity. In each selected locality, the same quantity of living material will be collected for comparison purposes. Collected specimens will be picked and taxonomically identified by students. Singapore offers an ideal and unique setting to study the impact of urbanization on the biosphere in a land-scarce, conservation-oriented state. The long term diversity monitoring that I wish to initiate with this preliminary project could lead to a landmark achievement that urban planning authorities and researchers in many scientific fields – ecology, urbanism, biology, palaeontology, systematics, and geology – will use as a reference.

Type of Project Offered as

NRP Junior Enrichment Project

College / School Asian School of the Environment

Target Group Sec 3 / Year 3 and Year 4

Group Size Pair

Specific Knowledge Prerequisite knowledge (facultative): basics in Biology, Ecology, Geography, and Geology. Soft skills: Nature lover, good observer, meticulous, enthusiastic, and capable. Software / programs: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, or equivalents.

Other Requirements NIL

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EEEjr01

Project Code EEEjr01

Title Understanding Graph Structures through Games

Category Engineering

Description Graph theory is an important branch of mathematics that is extremely powerful in representing relationships between objects. Among the various concepts in graphs, the notion of structural balance is useful in depicting the state of a graph representing the relationships among entities. In this project, we develop a game where users/players apply the concept of structural balance in the game play.

Type of Project Offered as

NRP Junior Enrichment Project

College / School School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering

Target Group Sec 3 / Year 3 and Year 4

Group Size Pair

Specific Knowledge Keen interest in programming and game design.

Other Requirements Mathematically inclined.

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EEEjr02

Project Code EEEjr02

Title Gamification of Educational Modules - Digital Electronics

Category Engineering

Description This project requires students to develop an gaming app to make learning of basic concepts in digital electronics fun and mentally engaging. Students opting for this project should have the following interests: - game design - app programming (Android) - basic electronics Students shall exercise creativity in designing the gaming aspects, which include storyboarding plus the UI look and feel.

Type of Project Offered as

NRP Junior Enrichment Project

College / School School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering

Target Group Sec 3 / Year 3 and Year 4

Group Size Pair

Specific Knowledge Keen interest in electronics and app programming. Basic knowledge would be a definite advantage though not a necessity. Students must be willing to invest the time to learn should they lack the required knowledge.

Other Requirements Interest in app programming.

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EEEjr03

Project Code EEEjr03

Title Water Dielectric Resonator Antennas

Category Engineering

Description Water has a lot of interesting features: transparent, flexible, and readily available. In addition, it has very high dielectric constant and potentially low loss. Therefore, antennas based on water can be compact in size and easily reconfigurable. This project is to study a suitable dielectric resonator antenna based on pure water, which can be used in wireless local area network (WLAN). Extensive simulations will be conducted to determine the suitable shape of the water container so that the antenna can operate at a few useful frequencies. A prototype may be fabricated near the end of the project to verify the design concept.

Type of Project Offered as

NRP Junior Enrichment Project

College / School School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering

Target Group Sec 3 / Year 3 and Year 4

Group Size Pair

Specific Knowledge NIL

Other Requirements NIL

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MAEjr01

Project Code MAEjr01

Title Investigating the Printability of Materials on a Novel Handheld 3D Printing Pen

Category Engineering

Description We have patented a novel portable 3D printing pen that is able to dispense both solid and paste-like materials. This project aims to further develop new materials and conduct testing on printability of these materials. The student will be able to learn to design experiments, investigate on the different printed structures and study the printability.

Type of Project Offered as

NRP Junior Enrichment Project

College / School School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

Target Group Sec 3 / Year 3 and Year 4

Group Size Pair

Specific Knowledge NIL

Other Requirements NIL

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NIEjr01

Project Code NIEjr01

Title Students' Perception of Oracy Skills Teaching Programs in Singapore

Category Business, Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences

Description Oracy Skills (including listening and speaking) are essential in daily and academic life. Schools allocate a part of teaching hours to teaching these skills, but there is little evidence how students in Singapore's school perceive the teaching programs dealing with these skills. This project seeks to determine whether oracy skills programs are found to be effective and efficient by students in Singapore's schools.

Type of Project Offered as

NRP Junior Enrichment Project

College / School National Institute of Education

Target Group Sec 3 / Year 3 and Year 4

Group Size Pair

Specific Knowledge Motivation and interest in research.

Other Requirements NIL

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NIEjr02

Project Code NIEjr02

Title Exploring Local Micro-Climates With Open-Source Sensors

Category Engineering

Description You will be using open-source environmental sensors (based on Arduinos) to build a dataset of the microclimate around your home, over a period of time spanning the duration of the project. You and your team-mate will use the datasets to compare the microclimate from your two respective sites, and make reasoned inferences and analyses regarding the variation in the patterns of the data observed. The sensors can be configured to measure variables such as light, temperature, and humidity. They can be self powered and can be configured to run-off regular handphone battery-pack chargers. For extension activities, you and your team-mate could explore modifying and customising the sensors, and / or modifying the source code, and / or thinking about different ways of housing the sensors and weatherproofing them, possibly using fabricated parts which you yourselves design. You wil come away with a more informed understanding of how and why microclimate varies over time, using empirical data gathered from your respective local (home) environments. Your study can contribute to wider datasets which the research team are already building in Singapore as well as in other countries in ASEAN.

Type of Project Offered as

NRP Junior Enrichment Project

College / School National Institute of Education

Target Group Sec 3 / Year 3 and Year 4

Group Size Pair

Specific Knowledge None specific.

Other Requirements You should be prepared to analyse the data you generate using freely available statistical tools found online, as part of your final report and presentation.

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NIEjr03

Project Code NIEjr03

Title Development of Graphene / Metal Interfaces for Large Spin-Orbit Interaction

Category Sciences

Description Spintronics (means spin + electronics) deals with the spin of electron for the development of futuristic logic and memory devices with ultra-high speed and high storage capacity. To achieve futuristic spintronics devices, high spin current to charge current and charge current to spin current inter-conversion efficiency is need. Till date, maximum inter-conversion efficiency is reported to be 33% in tungsten and need to be improved to realize spin devices for practical applications. To enhance this inter-conversion efficiency, system with large and tunable spin-orbit interactions is required. In the present proposal, we propose a 2 dimensional graphene / metal interface which can result in the large spin orbit interaction due to the presence of free electron in the graphene and difference in the chemical potential at the metal-graphene interfaces. Hence, in the present proposed research, graphene interfacing with metal is opted to develop new cost effective and non-toxic high spin orbit materials. Approach can help in the progress of the spin-orbit engineering to achieve large charge to spin conversion efficiency which is highly desired to accelerate this emerging field of research and application. The proposed research not only places an academic impact but also create a technological impact.

Type of Project Offered as

NRP Junior Enrichment Project

College / School National Institute of Education

Target Group Sec 3 / Year 3 and Year 4

Group Size Pair

Specific Knowledge Good hands-on the experimental science and keen to learn basic Physics and Chemistry.

Other Requirements NIL

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SCBEjr01

Project Code SCBEjr01

Title Cradle-to-Gate Life Cycle Analysis of Pharmaceutical Excipients

Category Engineering

Description Pharmaceutical excipients are the ingredients used in the preparation of oral solid dosage form of drugs (e.g. tablets, capsules). This project aims to develop a life cycle inventory database of pharmaceutical excipients that exhibit green characteristics. The project will require extensive literature review, data mining, and computer simulation.

Type of Project Offered as

NRP Junior Enrichment Project

College / School School of Chemical & Biomedical Engineering

Target Group Sec 3 / Year 3 and Year 4

Group Size Pair

Specific Knowledge Life cycle assessment analysis, environmental sustainability awareness.

Other Requirements NIL

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SPMSjr01

Project Code SPMSjr01

Title Visualizing Scientific Concepts in Nanoelectronics

Category Sciences

Description The objective of the project is to visualize complex and abstract scientific concepts in nanoelectronics by designing 3-dimensional (3D) images and/or videos. Visualizing scientific concept and principle in nanoelectronics is extremely crucial in scientific studies. In fact, these visualizations, including image and video, are always used in research articles published in scientific journals. From equipment schematic to scattering mechanism and to working principle, they are all means of visualization in order to pitch the difficult and abstract research concepts to readers. Without the images and videos, research work cannot even be understood by scientific researchers in the same research field. However, visualizing scientific concepts can be challenging. In order to construct a good scientific visualization and elaborate the concepts, sufficient understanding on the concepts is a must factor. Furthermore, a good artistic design can also significantly empower the visualizations. In this project, the student will focus on visualizing schematics and working principle of nanoelectronics using the 3D modeling software. The intended type of nanoelectronic device to visualize is the field-effect transistor utilizing nanomaterials. The field-effect transistor is a vital device structure in information technology. It uses an electric field to control the electrical conductivity of a material and store binary information inside.

The project will be structured into different levels: (a) Modeling atomic structures of nanomaterials, such as ultrathin film; (b) Design a field-effect transistor structure and the electrical circuits; (c) Rendering images of electron injection and electron scattering process with different perspectives. (d) Making a video to demonstrate the working principle of a field-effect transistor.

Some representative images can be found on my group website http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/renshaw/miscellaneous.html. Throughout the project, the student will be educated with scientific knowledge of physics, technological concepts of field-effect transistor and skills of 3D modeling. This knowledge and skills will be very useful for the further career of the participants. For instance, the student who wants to do research in future will find that the skills are useful for publishing the scientific paper and making a presentation. For the student who wants to work in the field or industry mixed with science, technology, and design, it will be the best fit and a great opportunity.

Type of Project Offered as

NRP Junior Enrichment Project

College / School School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences

Target Group Sec 3 / Year 3 and Year 4

Group Size Pair

Specific Knowledge Physics.

Other Requirements NIL

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