Author Archives: Sanchita Shandilya, Renaissance Engineering Programme student

Welcome, “villains”!

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In the REP (Renaissance Engineering Programme) family, we don’t consider bonding to be an important thing. We consider it to be everything.

As you might know from my previous posts, love, respect and a little bit of insanity run in the REP family, and the first step towards building all of these is the Freshmen Orientation Camp (FOC) – an event fondly organised by the awesome REP seniors to welcome juniors with a bang!

So here is an exclusive sneak peek into Ignire 2013. “Ignire” is the latin word for “ignite”, and surely, we saw some magnificent fireworks (metaphorically, of course) this year. The camp theme was “Super Villain” and as Shao Ying, President of the Organising Committee, put it, this was “a camp different from other camps as the freshmen trained to be true villains!”. So clearly this year, it was all about being “bad” and living dangerously.

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It’s the journey that matters

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As the academic year draws to a close, I’m reminded of the courses I took this semester. There’s one that I believe will always be fondly remembered by all REP students – the Build and Test Project. This module set our creative juices flowing and motivated us to push beyond our self-imposed limitations.

This course lasted two semesters, and in the second semester, we had to design a remote-controlled toy car that could run on a self-made zinc-copper chemical battery. It turned out to be quite a challenge. We were competing on speed, distance and innovation, and the teams were clearly trying to outdo one another. We could hear cries of frustration, anxiety and plain old anger in the lab, when despite all attempts to get the cars to move, they refused to. Corrosion of cells, sputtering and dying motors, and inexplicable fumes from the motherboard (yet another short circuit?) – the list of glitches seemed never-ending.

But desperation is the mother of invention. As we neared the end of the 12-week long assignment, I was both surprised and impressed by the discipline, commitment and creativity demonstrated by my fellow classmates. People worked overnight on their designs, burning the midnight oil over solders, screwdrivers and hand drills. On the final test day, we saw some amazing ideas in action – dry batteries, 3D printed chasses, self-developed apps for control and, of course, cars that ran up a 7-metre slope in 7 seconds.

s11Exciting car-nival: our roadsters getting ready to race.

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Life as we know it…

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It has been two years since I took my A-levels. I remember the euphoria as a fresh survivor of that academic milestone, and also that it dies out soon enough as one gets lost in the befuddling maze we call university applications.

“Who am I?” “What is my purpose?” Questions like these may keep you awake at night during the admissions season. Given that it is that time of the year again, I am going to dedicate this post to help potential REP (Renaissance Engineering Programme) applicants figure out whether REP is the course for them.

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To new beginnings…

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The world did not end in 2012 after all, and life went on (the inconvenience is deeply regretted :P).

We are all back in NTU for a new semester that will take us further in our quest for knowledge. A new semester is always exciting – you see old faces sporting new hairstyles, new clothes, new memories, new accents, but with old, familiar smiles. You heave a sigh of relief at tiding over past exams, and you look forward to more adventures and experiences. You inevitably suffer from post-vacation blues, muttering “the holidays are over before I knew it!” But you also cheer yourself up by meeting your awesome course mates, sharing holiday adventures, exchanging souvenirs from exotic destinations and laughing away memories of the arduous semester that just went by.

With such mixed and heightened emotions, my fellow course mates and I started another year in the Renaissance Engineering Programme amid high hopes and expectations. And we aren’t going to be disappointed, for 2013 is set to be a landmark year in our educational journey as REP students.

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An ode to everyone…

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As much as I love writing, I find it impossible to blog during exams. Nothing exciting ever happens then, just a monotonous chant of sleep-study-sleep-study-sleep-study and it never seems to end.

However, this semester was slightly different. When the worst was over, when I’d joyously handed in that final answer script in exchange for the life I once had, I realised something significant had happened.

Even though this semester was probably the toughest thing in the Renaissance Engineering Programme (REP) so far, it brought out the best in my classmates.

This examination season, the spirit of giving in the REP family was stronger than one might find during Christmas. So, I dedicate this blog post to the students of the REP family, the people who have consciously or unconsciously rescued me and our fellow classmates from the recent carnage.

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After the vows

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I found my soulmate in the form of NTU’s Renaissance Engineering Programme, or REP. It is a holistic programme, one of the few of its kind that brings together the best of both worlds: science and humanities. Fresh out of junior college, I’d fallen hopelessly in love with a course that seemed challenging, exciting and intriguing at the same time. So, I decided to swear fidelity to my one true love and looked forward to an amazing undergraduate learning experience.

So how is married life with REP treating me? I get this a lot, for people in our world are always sceptical of relationships with strangers we don’t know much about. Joining REP was definitely a venture into the unknown, as I am a part of the pioneer batch of students now in our second year. So have I found the elusive marital bliss yet? Or have I succumbed to a premature seven-year itch?

As a true-blue pioneer, I can tell you REP gets frustrating sometimes. Most recently, that happened when I sat down with crayons and markers (for the first time in the past decade) to draw – yes, draw – for a prescribed elective at the School of Art, Design & Media. And it happened when I met my old friend, Electronics and Information Engineering, again, only it had grown more difficult and impossible (why, Fourier, why?). And it happens every second week when I have multiple assignments due, or continuous assessments that clash, or a car (for a build-and-test project) that adamantly refuses to run… and the list goes on.

Then why am I still here?

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